Larkin’s Poems

1. Choose three poems and analyze the effectiveness in them of Larkin’s imagery.

Larkin’s poems are great artifacts of language; often colloquial and which bring many images to a person’s mind when reading them. We think of these images due to his use of words, standard rhyme schemes and his interesting perception of life transmitted through his poems. This essay will study these three poems; ‘The Whitsun Weddings’, ‘High Windows’ and ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ in order to show the effectiveness in them of Larkin’s imagery.

‘The Whitsun Weddings,’ represents the change in life, which everyone goes through. This poem is about a man, possibly Larkin, going on a train heading to the countryside. Towards the middle of the poem, he sees that on every station the train stops at, there is a newlywed couple getting on for their honeymoon. At the end of the poem, he explains how marriage changes you. He uses many nouns to describe what he sees while on the train.

The first two stanzas describe in detail what he is viewing from inside the train. For example:

“Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street

Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock.”

In this line, he is thoroughly describing each object he passes by, even the smell of the fish-dock. He tends to do this very successfully because he uses clever metaphors in his writing. An example of this could be one from the line above, “of blinding windscreens.” He is referring to the sun when he says, “blinding.” This gives an effect to the readers because they automatically think of a situation in which they too were blinded by the sun. Therefore, an image comes to their mind while reading it trying to put themselves in that situation. Throughout the poem, he describes other things as well, which bring images to your mind. For example, “its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.” This brings an image to your head of how the areas of districts are nicely grown.

The image Larkin perceives at the end of the poem is somewhat complex.

“A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower

Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.”

Rain does not fall in a parabolic curve. The image that Larkin wants us to imagine is a “shower” of arrows which falls out of sight, somewhere in the future as rain. His use of metaphor (arrows) broadens the image of lives being projected from the present into the future. This image is of growth and procreation.

The poem, ‘High Windows,’ is about a man who is reflecting on the change of generation. He sees two young people and automatically believes they are making love, something which would not have been done at his age. The use of colloquial language in the first stanza helps give a greater effect by showing that in someway, the “couple of kids” use that language. It also relates more to the reader because generally they know what the poet is trying to say as they use that language. The second stanza gives a simile which helps us bring an image to our minds.

“Like an outdated combine harvester.” We automatically think of the image of a big heavy machine.

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