When “An Arundel Tomb” was first published in The Whitsun Weddings in 1964‚ a number of reviewers singled the poem out for comment. Christopher Ricks‚ in The New York Review of Books‚ described Larkin as “the best poet England now has‚” and said of the collection “people will be grateful for its best poems for a long time.” Ricks listed “An Arundel Tomb” as one of the six best poems. Praise came also from Joseph L. Feather-stone‚ in New Republic‚ who used the last two lines of the poem to illustrate
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Philip Larkin was born in 1922 in Coventry‚ England. Like Thomas Hardy‚ he focused on intense personal emotion but strictly avoided sentimentality or self-pity. Deeply anti-social and a great lover (and published critic) of American jazz‚ Larkin never married and conducted an uneventful life as a librarian in the provincial city of Hull‚ where he died in 1985. This short poem touches on a favourite theme of Larkin’s - the distance between what we originally plan and what‚ in the end‚ we achieve
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Philip Larkin Philip Larkin‚ is a famous writer in postwar Great Britain‚ was commonly referred to as "England’s other Poet Laureate" until his death in 1985. Indeed‚ when the position of laureate became vacant in 1984‚ many poets and critics favored Larkin’s appointment‚ but the shy‚ provincial author preferred to avoid the limelight. Larkin achieved acclaim on the strength of an extremely small body of work‚ just over one hundred pages of poetry in four slender volumes that appeared at almost
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Philip Larkin demonstrates the use of “piquant mixture of lyricism and discontent” through his poetic explorations in Here and The Whitsun Weddings. Both pieces were published in 1964 as a collection of poems collectively titled ‘The Whitsun Weddings’. In the poem Here you see both lyricism (expression of emotion in an imaginative and beautiful way) and discontent (dissatisfaction‚ typically with the prevailing social or political situation) though in The Whitsun Weddings you tend to see more lyricism
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"Larkin is a poet of grey moods‚ suburban melancholy and accepted regrets." Do you agree or disagree You can look out of your life like a train and see what your heading for‚ but you can’t stop the train. This was one of Larkin’s famous quotes. It means life keeps going on‚ even when there’s a bump on the road and you need to stop‚ but you just simply can’t stop life. You have to be patient and flow through life until its time. This however‚ definitely composes Larkin as a poet who articulates
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Analysis- SELFS THE MAN From the offset‚ we get the sense of a sarcastic‚ cynical and flippant character. “Oh‚ no one can deny / That Arnold is less selfish than I”. The colloquial “oh” gives a sense of how he brushes it off‚ and he seems to be boastful of his selfishness. Into the next few lines‚ he presents a stereotypical image of marriage as entrapment‚ “married a woman to stop her getting away” and the ironic aside‚ ‘Now she’s there all day” as though his “less selfish” friend didn’t know what
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of consumerism. Following the pattern of many other poems in this collection‚ ‘Here’ begins with physical ideas of ‘rich industrial images’‚ before becoming more abstract in the final stanza. By beginning the poem with the participle‚ ‘swerving’‚ Larkin immediately gives the reader a sense of the moment being suspended in the present‚ before an unpredictable‚ fast movement‚ which is not usually associated with travelling on a train. The word itself is sudden‚ describing an immediate action and repetition
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Analysis of Philip Larkin’s poem ‘First sight’ in relation to the idea of natural progression through stages of life. First sight is an intense yet fulfilling interpretation of a newly born lambs first glimpses of the world. The poem also explores the difficulties the young lamb faces through its first experiences of the harsh environment and how they have to deal with it as they find their feet in the world. Been born in winter the lambs have yet to experience “earth’s unmeasurable surprise” which
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A poem which describes an ordinary or everyday scene is ‘Ambulances’ by Philip Larkin. ‘Ambulances’ is about an ambulance going to take someone away and the neighbourhood is watching what is happening. It shows the curiosity that is in every human being and the inevitability of dying. This essay will discuss how the poet uses an ordinary/everyday scene and make it important and to explore a wider universal theme. The essay will also show how Larkin’s use of poetic techniques makes and ordinary or
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WIRES Wires by Philip Larkin is an analogy of a society trapped by rules and limits and a demonstration that fear prevents humankind from following their desires. Larkin writes this poem in 1950 with the idea of showing his point of view of the world. In the poem the cattles are trapped by the wires imposed‚ preventing them from ever reaching their search for purer water. He shows that the world offers no hope nor mercy whatsoever in their trial for escape. What the poet is actually trying
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