Philip Larkin

English Literature A level Wider Reading

Philip Larkin, a university librarian that spent most of his life living in a flat in Hull is one of the greatest and most-loved British poets of the last century. His pessimistic views of life adjoined with foul language and adept commentary on the changing society of a post war Britain left him with the image of "the grumpy old bachelor", yet Larkin's poetry is acutely observational, autobiographical and above all absolutely horrifyingly and wonderfully British. His work characterterises and observes the movement in social culture in Britain, from one of high brow conservatism to more liberal, free thinking youth. High Windows, written in 1967,  captures this transformation and how it changed society's perception of love. 

High Windows

Analysis A2 Love Through The Ages

1967-02-12

When I see a couple of kids

And guess he’s fucking her and she’s   

Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,   

I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—   

Bonds and gestures pushed to one side

Like an outdated combine harvester,

And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if   

Anyone looked at me, forty years back,   

And thought, That’ll be the life;

No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide   

What you think of the priest. He

And his lot will all go down the long slide   

Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:   

The sun-comprehending glass,

And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows

Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

"High Windows" could reflect 2 things:

1. Windows in a church, high, tall and intimidating - reminding of God's presence. "Sun-comprehending glass" would perhaps be synonymous with this reading of the title's meaning as the windows in a church is often what people look to for guidelines, support and structure of life. Without them, without the "glass" acting as the barrier there's "nothing and is nowhere, and is endless" and arguably life is meaningless without the structures of religion and morality. 

2. They could reflect the "high brow" view of society, corresponding to the metaphor of physically high windows. This could also be the metaphorical place at which Larkin comments on the issues in the poem - from a view of perspective and experience. 

The frankness with which Larkin writes, it could be argued, breaches the question that society itself was facing - the removal of love from romance and experiencing casual sex as  something purely for enjoyment and pleasure - detached from emotion. Larkin reflects this with his use of frank words "fucking" that removes the participants from the act itself and instead it becomes something ugly and cold. The "pills" and "diaphragm" too are reminiscent of female power - them taking hold of their own sexual experiences. But all of this is satirically contrasted against Larkin's disjointed final line "I know this is paradise". This can be read with a sarcastic tone as it jars with the uninviting, clinical use of words such as "fuck" and discussion of female contraception; the irony of paradise.

Another theme throughout the poem is one of religion. The loss of sexual rules in society seems synonymous with the loss of religion too. "No God anymore, or sweating in the dark// About hell and that". "Sweating in the dark" is representative of the guilt that's often tied with passion and sex in religion, but also the act itself which no longer has to take place "in the dark", metaphorically speaking. Sex is less secret and more talked about - a more open and enlightened activity. "He and his lot will all go down the long slide like free bloody birds" here Larkin predicts that religion will be dissolved, that priests too will join the "slide". The long slide symbolises playground-like fun. But also something fast moving and inescapable. 

The Explosion

On the day of the explosion

Shadows pointed towards the pithead:

In the sun the slagheap slept.

Down the lane came men in pitboots

Coughing oath-edged talk and pipe-smoke,

Shouldering off the freshened silence.

One chased after rabbits; lost them;

Came back with a nest of lark’s eggs;

Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.

So they passed in beards and moleskins,

Fathers, brothers, nicknames, laughter,

Through the tall gates standing open.

At noon, there came a tremor; cows

Stopped chewing for a second; sun,

Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed.

The dead go on before us, they

Are sitting in God’s house in comfort,

We shall see them face to face –

Plain as lettering in the chapels

It was said, and for a second

Wives saw men of the explosion

Larger than in life they managed –

Gold as on a coin, or walking

Somehow from the sun towards them,

One showing the eggs unbroken.

This poem is somewhat different to many of Larkin's poems which are often steeped in sarcasm and humour. Instead it is quietly reflective in tone. It was written in memorial to those who died in a mining accident in 1969. 

At the beginning everything is peaceful and slow "the sun the slagheap slept" "pipesmoke" "freshened silence" which builds a sort of sense of security for the reader. This reflects the feeling by which we go through life. Not troubled by the thought of death. We never know the dangers that await us round the corner. 

Larkin focuses on the minutia of moments. How quickly death can come. He repeats the phrase "for a second" in the poem twice. "cows// Stopped chewing for a second" "It was said, and for a second// Wives saw men of the explosion" which exaggerates how quickly everything changed. But also how quickly the rest of the world moves on from death with the cows as they only pause from their grazing for a moment. 

The metaphor of the eggs too, Larkin uses as symbolism for the delicacy of life. It also adds some tenderness to the men. We gain an emotional connection to them. It's also poignant in the way he preserves the new life of the birds - he does not crush them though it would be easy to but "lodged them in the grasses". 

Larkin was particularly concerned with his own death and mortality and this poem highlights that immensely. Although Larkin usually talks extremely darkly of death and the afterlife, here there is a sense of hope. He has always claimed he was largely agnostic or even atheist in religious views, yet this poem seems to claim some sort of hope from the church. I think Larkin highlights here the importance of religion and faith in dealing with grief. "The dead go on before us, they// Are sitting in God’s house in comfort,//We shall see them face to face –//Plain as lettering in the chapels//It was said, and for a second//Wives saw men of the explosion" Heaven is  a sort of solace for the wives. That they see their husbands happy and "unbroken" in afterlife. This is a similar theme that could be seen in An Arundel Tomb, another poem by Larkin. 

An Arundel Tomb

Marriage - medievil union. Second marriage Earl of Arundel,Eleanor of Lancaster,
Death are they remembered for the people they were? Talks about how the people who remember the inscription on the bottom and hwat it says died and the knowledge died with them

"they would not think to lie so long" - can you be with anyone for eternity? Larkin's cabin fever of love. Couldn't commit to one woman for very long
 The pair is imprisoned in both their marriage and their lie. They lie not only in stone but as stone. Parralels with Keat's Ode to  agrecian urn. They're not based in reality but are engravings 

Love isn’t stronger than death just because statues hold hands for 600 years

This Be the Verse - Philip Larkin (1971) Analysis

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Larkin remarks on our inheritance of characteristics from our parents. It's a cycle we cannot control. We fall into it generation after generation. Bad habits and ways of disciplining drilled into us subconsciously - for childhood discipline is taught to us by our parents and we use it on our own children. Larkin makes a frank statement. The seventies was a time of change, widespread non-conformation and radical thinking. The poem pleads not to put your children through what you yourself endured and to perhaps think before you bring your child into a world filled with the same war, hate and mess that your parents experienced. Nothing changes; the cycle continues. 

"Fucked Up". The word "Fuck" is short, but has dramatic impact - is used to shock, reflecting the wider message and perhaps a nod to the colloquial language punk bands would have used in their own songs, provoking wider political message, at the time. Its use convey's Larkin's stark anger and frustration.

"By fools in old style hats and coats" is reference to the generations before. Hats and coats playing a role of stuffy imagery of colder, older generations past. 

"Man hands on misery to man" is again a reference to the unchanging ways of humanity. Still we believe by death and destruction can we achieve, but instead we are plagued with misery. Why can't we learn from the generations before us that this doesn't work!? 

"It deepens like a coastal shelf" depicts the ignorance with which we progress. We deepen our "coastal shelf" out of view - under the cover of the oceans, but none the less there. As the coastal shelf grows as does the risk of landslides and tsunamis. A metaphor for humanity's own journey of self destruction. 

The steady metre and rhyme of the poem reflects the ongoing monotony and repetition of humanity. Unable to break away from history repeating itself. 

Annus Mirabilis

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(which was rather late for me) -

Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban

And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been

A sort of bargaining,

A wrangle for the ring,

A shame that started at sixteen

And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:

Everyone felt the same,

And every life became

A brilliant breaking of the bank,

A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than

In nineteen sixty-three

(Though just too late for me) -

Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban

And the Beatles' first LP.

"Annus Mirabilis" translated from Latin to "years of wonder" is a poem of sexual awakening  It marks the transformation of Larkin and of the country into an era of sexual liberation. For the first time it was deemed okay to talk about sexual experiences and fashionable to enjoy sex. Larkin talks about it being "rather late for me", "A wrangle for the ring" and "the quarrel" which endows virginity as a right of passage - something that's desired as a right to coming of age and can almost be viewed as a competition in comparison to peers as in a boxing ring "A  wrangle for the ring". This could also have connotations of marriage (a wedding ring), or more explicitly, be a metaphor for a woman's body part. The "bargaining" depicts sex as material goods to be brought and sold - the superficiality of sex and men's views on women. 

The third stanza marks a change of tone in the poem. "All at once the quarrel sank" marking the end of the extraordinary phenomenon. "Everyone felt the same" at a time when to be different was  ground breaking and exciting. It marks the movement into adulthood - the thrill of something new and exciting extinguished.