Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion

Category: British Literature (page 6 of 10)

Poetry Analysis: Philip Larkin’s “Whitsun Weddings”

November 30, 2014 / / 1 Comment

“It would be not too much to claim that it is one of the best poems written so far in this century,” says Galvin Ewart of Philip Larkin’s “Whitsun Weddings.”

The poem reminds us of W.H.Auden’s “The Night Mail” passing through many locations. Whitsun is the seventh day after marriage. In the 1950s, British tax law made the Whitsun weekend a financially advantageous time to be married. Larkin, therefore, commercializes marriage as an institution here, by adopting the specific title. Philip Larkin describes his stopping-train journey through East Yorkshire from Paragon Station, Kingston upon Hull to Kings Cross, London on a hot and humid Whitsun Saturday afternoon in the late 1950s. Larkin through his simple, yet elegant style divulges the details of a commonplace journey into a beautiful poem. The poem describes a train journey, and the poet occasionally stops at certain lines as though he is pausing at railway stations. Larkin’s intricate detailing of the scenes he sees, hold our attention right at the beginning: the backsides of houses with windows, fish-dock not seen, but felt through the senses, the confluence of two rivers that form the estuary of River Humber. The afternoon was a stiflingly humid one as the train shot past fields with grazing cattle, canal contaminated with industrial wastes, a glass house growing plants, the smell of the grass contrasted with the stale smell of the upholstery, dumped dismantled cars.…

Poetry Analysis: Philip Larkin’s “Church Going”

November 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Critics like Anthony Thwaite put forward the view that “Church-Going” is a “veiled plea in support of Christianity.” This, however, is not true. Philip Larkin in his interview “Four Conversations” substantiates it when he declares: “I don’t bother about that kind of thing”, and “I am deliberately ignorant of it.”Andrew Motion suggests that the speaker in “Church-Going” begins the poem by banishing any signs of holy dread. The speaker comes across as a blasé person introducing religion with absolute disregard and sheer callousness. He reduces the holy institution of the church to a list of material entities-matting, slats, stone, little books, withered flowers, ,small neat organ. etc. One wonders whether it is to foreground his views as a skeptic or, to reduce religion to mere aesthetics.

The “large-scale verses” seem to glare at him and frighten him into believing them. He categorically puts the reciting to an end asserting:” Here endeth.” For him this is not only the end of that particular chapter, but also the end of the chapter of Christianity. It undoubtedly refers to the social context of the poem. The period was marked by the deterioration of faith. The year after 1945, saw a decline in the religious attendance at churches.…

Poetry Analysis: Philip Larkin’s “Ambulances”

November 30, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Philip Larkin’s “Ambulances” exemplifies the hollowness of life in the face of death.The poet’s ease and conversational tone is juxtaposed with the eeriness of reality. Calvin Bedient asserts:”Larkin is unillusioned with a metaphysical zero in his bones. “Ambulances” highlights the pragmatics of life and contrasts it with the inevitability of death.

The symbol of the ambulance at once emblematizes death. They are like ‘closed confessionals’. Sitting in the ambulance, one is like an open book outpouring all the woes of life mentally and is ultimately resigned to fate. In both the ambulance and the confessional, the last resort is submitting oneself to God. When apprehended as a symbol of death, it is indeed ‘closed’ as Death possesses no openings. The ‘silence’ of death is juxtaposed against the ‘loud noons of the cities.’ The noon is glaring and so are the glances that the ambulance receives. However, it does not return any of these stares as it is totally apathetic to the practicalities of life. The phrase “Light glossy grey” though it refers to the colours of the ambulance, they may also allude to the various stages in life. The Light, the infant stage; the Glossy, the prime of youth; and the grey, the aged individual.…

Poetry Analysis: Philip Larkin’s “Aubade”

November 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The poet describes in the poem his apprehension of the hollowness of life, and inexorableness of death. The implications of a barren existence is hinted at, where everything is eventually reduced to naught. The poet asserts that he works all day caught in a mechanical routine; at night he is half-drunk and therefore is in a state of semi-consciousness. Therefore his existence has no real meaning. Waking at four in the night, he apprehends how the curtain-edges will turn on their lights as though Death has foreboded his entry. The ‘soundless dark’ is as hollow as the prospect of death itself. The advancement of each day brings home the realization that the speaker is one step closer to Death. He talks of ‘unresting death’ as the fear of death, the unfathomable always remains. The time and location are uncertain, only death is certain. The interrogation that follows life after death scares him. The notion of death scares him more than death itself.

The concept of death seems to glare into his face. It is not in remorse alone, but grieves over his inability at things unachieved:

 

The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused – nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,

The poet points at an annulled existentialism and the pointlessness of all human endeavour.…

Poetry Analysis: Philip Larkin’s “At Grass”

November 30, 2014 / / 2 Comments

The idiomatic phrase “to put at grass” indicates retirement. Therefore the title signifies the concept of retirement and old age. The first stanza:” The eye can hardly pick them out” signals the deterioration of vision in old age. It may also imply the attitude of onlookers to ignore the aged. The title ‘At Grass” again denotes how at old age, Man is relegated to grass root levels, or his behaviour resembles the beginning from grass-root levels as he transforms to a child, yet again.

Though the old horses are provided with shade, the shade is ‘cold’ suggesting the lack of warmth. It takes the ‘wind’ to stimulate them and arouse them Note that it is an agent of nature, and not humans that is instrumental in evoking their senses. One of the horses crops grass fulfilling his basic need; the other looks on as an ‘anonymous’ being. The word ‘anonymous’ may verge on the old-age disease Alzheimer’s; however, it may also mean that being of no (practical ) use now, he functioned as an anonymous being. He was completely ignored.

Just fifteen years ago, these horses were capable of traversing large distances. Their exploits were enough to ‘fable’ them or render them legends.…

Poetry Analysis: Philip Larkin’s “The Arundel Tomb”

November 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The possessions of the Arundel family came into the hands of the Duke of Norfolk by marriage in 1580. Chichester Cathedral holds the tomb of a member of the Arundel family. In the poem “The Arundel Tomb,” the last poem in Larkin’s collection The Whitsun Weddings, Larkin visualizes the monument (in stone) of an earl and a countess in a tomb. Through the description of the same, he elaborates on how hollow human existence is with all its inherent imperfections.

The faces side to side, their faces are blurred to as they are in oblivion to each other. They are also blurred owing to the passage of time due to decay. The term ‘proper habit’ is a technical term in heraldry ascertaining that their dress was in natural hues and not conventional ones.  Their jointed armour and stiffened pleat seem to define them at the moment, when at one point in their lives they defined the same.

Baroque is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century. It is most often defined as “the dominant style of art in Europe between the Mannerist and Rococo eras, a style characterized by dynamic movement, overt emotion and self-confident rhetoric.” Though the form of art is eloquent in itself, it fails, according to the poet in engaging the eye.…

Poetry Analysis: William Shakespeare’s “The Seven Ages of Man”

November 30, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The poem is a part of the monologue of Jacques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It (2. 7. 139-167) .The first two lines are oft-quoted, and the poem has been frequently anthologized.The very first two lines of the poem exemplify Shakespeare’s notions regarding Life, Destiny and Providence. He strongly believes in preconceived notions regarding life. The poet comprehends that the stage is set by the Ultimate Creator, and we are mere puppets out to act our roles out as directed by Him. Their exits and entrances are ‘stage-managed’ or predetermined. A man generally plays seven typical parts. Like Ben Jonson’s flat character types based on the theory of humours, these are typified mainly according to age of the person .

In the first stage, he is the infant, in the second, he is the schoolboy .Though he is endowed with a shining face and the vigour of youth, he moves likes a snail unawares of the blessings he is attributed with. He is afraid of what the world holds in store for him, and apprehensive of moving out of his protective shell. Then comes the lover who visualizes the world as a bed of roses. He is so obsessed with his love that he fails to see anything beyond that.…

Poetry Analysis: Milton’s “Paradise Lost” as a Tragedy

November 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Tragedy stresses on what is past and real and lays emphasis on convergent thinking; likewise Paradise Lost has no room for imaginative freeplay. It tends to be more information-gathering that explains Adam’s desire to gain more and more knowledge from the angel Raphael. However there is uncritical thinking as with Tragedies which is why Adam cannot weigh the possibility of man’ s Fall against his love for Eve. Emotional engagement is another feature of tragedy where the tragic heroes tend to respond with great passion be it hatred, lust, love, revenge.etc. Likewise Adam responds with insatiable lust after his action of devouring the forbidden apple. Tragic heroes are idealistic and attached values to abstract concepts such as Justice, Truth, Honour, Innocence that Adam gives preference to before the fall of Eve. The Finality of leading to inevitable consequences is there, but there is also the possibility of reversing the same through the resurrection of Christ. The Tragic tends to value human spirit that is quite often dualistic prizing the soul over the body.

There is preference for the familiar as with tragedies which is why Adam and Eve choose primarily not to violate the norms; the preference and norm is for known knowledge than unknown knowledge.

…

Poetry Analysis: John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud”

November 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Holy Sonnet 10 is a sonnet of the Shakespearean type. It primarily endorses the fact that Death is not the Universal Destroyer of life. A monologue ensues in the form of a dispute between Man and Death where death is apostrophized. The effect of death is condensed by its representation as an undisruptive type of rest or sleep. John Donne refuses to accept death as ‘the final finale’. Religious conviction upholds the belief of eternal life after death embedded at the very core of its ideology. This marks the permanent end of death. Therefore, why is it that death is abhorred or held in awe as the Ultimate Subjugator. The spiritual objective of all believers has forever been to guide them from the cycle of life to salvation (or immortality).In that case, why are people petrified of Death? One has to acknowledge that only a true faith lends us the power to envision and forsee an undying life after death.

Sleep and rest, that are ultimate forms of solace are minimized mirror images of death, then why is not death a source of succor? Moreover, the most upright and honorable of men pass away soon as they are dear to God and relax in the serenity of peace before long.…

Poetry Analysis: John Donne’s “The Sunne Rising”

November 13, 2014 / / 0 Comments

John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” exemplifies the bliss of genuine love. Donne exhibits his characteristic style here by beginning the poem in his abrupt and dramatic style. As in Andrew Marvell’s “To his Coy Mistress” he endeavours to win over Time and Space. He belittles the Sun, that is the centre of the solar system and the forerunner of days and nights as ” BUSY old fool, unruly Sun.” The Sun comes across as the tribal chief imposing his whims and fancies on the members of the tribe. Why do the lovers have to constrain themselves to the time-bound rules and regulations of the Sun. The phrase ‘lovers’ seasons’ point to the fact the lovers have seasons of their own that pertain to individual choice. He may go about his trivial mechanical routine of waking up ‘late school boys’ and apprentices who have developed an aversion to work. The country ants and courtiers may buckle under his pressures. He is termed a “Saucy pedantic wretch;”unworthy in temperament, in show and in action respectively. Love is above seasons and climates. Hour, minutes and seconds are depicted as the rags worn by Time.

The Sun is bound by the illusion that his ever-stinging rays are powerful and command attention.…

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