Philip Larkins poetry be used to address Essay Example For Students

Philip Larkins poetry be used to address Essay The marginal or neglected can be seen to refer to Individuals, a class or nation, to ideas that have been marginals, to neglected forms such as poetry, and to the marginals self. Philip Larkin is renowned for his use of the colloquial in his poetry, and he renews the importance of everyday language and words, that have been neglected and marginals in forms of expression. His poems have the tone of the ordinary day. Through this use of language, he reflects on the loss of Identity and to the neglected state of England due to modernization and Industrialization. Poetry itself Is a specialist form; however Larking poetry can be seen as homely and less dramatic. He brought back poetry as a relevant and accessible medium, as it is easily marginals. Larkin is a poet who concentrates on absence and reality, the mundane, small and intricate aspects of everyday life that are important, but often ignored. He depicts an English post-war setting, struggling with destitution and despair, affectively describing dislocated humanity within the disruption of modernism. HIS poetry produces a sense of agency, and his own normalization and loneliness is also reflected. Larking poem, Maiden Name is a meditation on identity, memory, language and tradition. He represents the name as a disposable object, commenting on the preserving of values and the loss of them. The new consumerist age of disposal can be seen to be referred to here. He creates a sense of an unused, neglected old self and a past Identity that has been lost through marriage. The womans maiden name has been used and neglected, being a phrase applicable to no one (1. 8). The use of iambic meter gives weight to Larking everyday language, emphasizing how easy it is to lose your identity. The meter makes a seemingly congested line easy to dead, as the stresses make it flow naturally; for example, It means what we feel now about you then (l. 15). The rhythm reflects the want to take time leisurely, rather than being hasty, as perhaps the marriage in the poem was rushed, leading the woman to forget the past as she was thankfully confused (1. 4). Larkin does not say that the name means the person, he says it meant her face and voice (11. 2-31 and that it was of her that these two words were used (1. 7), being applicable (1. ) like an adjective. The word and the person are never completely melded, reflecting the disunion teens a name and the self. This disunion Is reflected in the last line of the second stanza; No, It means you. Or, since youre past and gone (1. 14), suggesting that the womans self is past, whilst her previous name still exists. Larkin uses relatively commonplace words, but their simplicity emphasis his argument about how easy it is to discard and neglec t a word, a name, and so serious weight is given to everyday, often neglected language in poetry. Larking Going, Going Is a didactic poem, commenting on the rapid process of English environment, which has become alienating. The poem has a despairing edge, is view of England being fatalistic and apocalyptic, as he prefigures a complete destruction of the countryside and national wholesomeness and identity of England. He produces a sense of agency, and this poem reflects Morrison thought that Larking poems were serving the needs of postwar Britain. The title refers to the language of the auctioneer who, when selling something to the highest bidder, will say Going going gone before slamming down the hammer. This suggests the idea of parts of the country being sold off to those who can afford them, in quick succession, with no regard for the social cost. At the start of the poem, he uses the first person, l, to express what his past anxieties and thoughts of England were. He saw the countryside as having a balance between the rural and the urban that would last his time. He has assumed he would still be able to escape the modernization to the countryside, by driving to it. The images of bleak high-risers (1. 11) and louts (1. ) are suggestive to a industrial change at the start, yet it can be read that the people who live the high-risers have a bleak outlook, and emphasis can be put on the louts coming from a village (1. 4). In the fourth stanza, he describes what he feels now (1. 8), and the use of mass images suggests a loss of identity. For example the plural images of the crowd, kids (11. 19-21), More houses, more parking allowed, / More caravan sites, more pay (11. 22-3). England is becoming meaningless, having no individual identity, where greed / And garbage are too thick-strewn (11. 1-2). The spectacled grins (1. 25) represent the blandness of businessmen as they contemplate a commercial maneuver without taking account of the possible human consequences. Yet they are still mere grins, and not people. Modern industrial images are contrasted with the images of nature, such as the MI oaf (1. 20) and concrete and trees (1. 49). Industry is marshalling the countryside, neglecting it. In the third stanza he expresses the fairly naive belief that nature is stronger and more resilient than man and it will be able to recover. What is popular culture? Essay SummaryBy the use of structure and rhythm, he makes the reader aware of time and the use of it in everyday life. The slower pace gives time for neglected thought. The seeming simplicity of his imagery reflects how easy it is to lose history and its meaning. He comments on the universal themes of loss, identity, consumerist culture, the environment and fatalism, through commonplace, neglected vocabulary. He effectively describes dislocated humanity within the disruption of modernism. Through his average voice , he brings importance back to the mundane everyday aspects of life that are ignored and selected.