But forced to qualify: Distancing speech and thought representation as a symptom of uninformedness in Larkin

This article argues in favour of introducing a second transitional category in between the traditional types "direct speech" and "indirect speech". While "free indirect speech" does represent the consciousness of a separate "sayer/cognizant", albeit with some aspects of deixis being geared to the "speaker", the newly introduced type "distancing indirect speech" effectively appropriates another's speech or thought for rhetorical purposes, without genuinely presenting that other's consciousness. The subsequent distinction between "private" and "public disclaimers" is illustrated on the basis of close readings of poems by Philip Larkin.