Send No Money - Philip Larkin

Links: Dockery and Son, Self's the Man, Here

Written on Larkin's 40th birthday

Stanza 1: 'fobbed' is refering to a fob watch, it could also refer to him being 'fobbed' off by time.
'Tell me the truth' - asking time - personification of time, what's the meaning of life? is what Larkin is asking.
'All the other lads there were itching to have a bash' - living life, like Dockery and Son. - Larkin is waiting to find out what the meaning of life is, and in doing this he has let time pass him by. - paradoxical.

Stanza 2: Larkin seems intimidated and overwhelmed by time - 'so he patted my head, booming'

Stanza 3: 'half life is over now' - he is middle aged, re-examining life, maybe having a mid-life crisis.
'And i meet full face on dark mornings the bestial visor' - personification of death or time or the truth.
'what does it prove? sod  all.' - wasting life - waiting - regret - not enjoying life - just waiting for things to happen.
'spent youth' - wasted youth
'tracing the trite untransferable truss-advertisement truth' - alliteration - missing out on life because he was looking for the meaning of life.
'truss-advertisement' - embarrassing - to do with age, supposed to help - it's a con - 'send no money' now but you will pay in the end - a bit like life.

Love Songs in Age - Philip Larkin

Links: Dockery and Son, The Whitsun Weddings, Reference Back, Talking in Bed - continuing with something when it is not satisfying.

Stanza 1: 'in widowhood' - recently widowed - old widowed female finds sheet music which she played in the 20-30's. she was married and had a daughter - positive time - contrast to how she feels now.
'she found them, looking for something else' - clear out - good to have a change in life.
Stanza 2: 'sense of being young' - music is a trigger for youth - nothing wrong - do anything - infinite potential.
'spread out'. - can go anywhere - possibilities
Stanza 3: 'the glare of that much-mentioned brilliance love' - 'glare' - light - blinded - cant see clearly - slightly unpleasant. 'brilliance' - jewels - reflect light - rare - expensive - precious - hard/cold.
'still promising to solve, and satisfy' - love = answer to troubles and doesnt need anything else.
'lamely admitting how it had not done so then and could not now' - only now she can bail out - love didnt solve all her problems when she was young and it wont now.

the woman had potential of youth - fell in love - blinded her - potential reduced
love=marriage=trapped.
Rabbit in the headlights - blinded - cant move - trapped in love and marriage

Regretful tone

Reference Back - Philip Larkin

 

Links - imagery - tree trunks - Love Songs in Age
 - train tracks - Dockey and Son - Here - The Whitsun Weddings
one way conversation - Dockery and Son - 'boredom then fear'

Stanza 1: 'pretty' not usually a word to describe music - shows his mother doesnt know much about his interests - not a close relationship.
'call from the unsatisfactory hall to the unsatisfactory room' - relationship not even in the same room.
its not good enough for him - unsatisfactory.
'wasting my time' - he's just listening to music in a place that doesnt feel like home and he's not getting anywhere.
'home' - should be a refuge and comfort, but he doesnt feel at home there
Stanza 2: 'the flock of notes those antique Negroes blew' - the music of slavery - he feels trapped
'three decades later' - 1953 - he's in his 30's yet acting like a teenager.
'sudden bridge' - between him and his mother - music metaphor
'unsatisfactory age' - old - running out of time
'unsatisfactory prime' - he is the prime age for marriage etc but he hasnt done anything significant - everything is unsatisfactory - he is only looking for things to be satisfactory, he's not even aiming for spectacular.
Stanza 3: 'we are not suited to the long perspectives' - one day at a time - they dont like looking o the future.
'open' - opportunities, life choices - traintrack/tree imagery
'losses, worse, they show us what we have as it once was' - one choice, one future, oneway ticket - dont look back because it shows missed opportunities.

Wild Oats - Philip Larkin

title - euphemism for young men reproducing but not young women

Stanza 1: 'faces in those days sparked the whole shooting - match off' - dates - notion of love and desire - love at first sight
'a bosomy english rose and her friend in specs i could talk to' - he fancies the first one but feels more comfortable with the second.
'But it was the friend i took out' - the first girl was too stunning - he settled for second best.
Stanza 2: 'and in seven years after that' - she wasted 7 years of her life waiting to be asked to be married.
'wrote over four hundred letters, gave a ten-guinea ring' - he did treat her to things - it appears that he is just ticking things off a list, he thinks money buys love, hes showing off, going through the motions - nice ladies would have said no to sex before marriage because there was no contraception, so he would of had to get her to marry him.
'i met beautiful twice. she was trying both times (so i thought) not to laugh' - they only met twice but he remembers, he calls her beautiful - but not the one he is dating. he's in love with the idea. he thinks shes mocking him.
Stanza 3: 'was an agreement that i was too selfish, withdrawn and easily bored to love.' - she could have realised this and tried to end it. or he has tried to finish it before and decided that this was the only way to put her off of him.
'well, useful to get that learnt' - male perspective, not really bothered by it, given up, dismissive - he learns the truth about himself. he's been dating her for 7 years and we are not told her name.
'in my wallet are still two snaps, of bosomy rose with fur gloves' - he has photos of a woman he never talked to and doesnt even know.
'unlucky charms, perhaps' - photos, he fell in love but didnt do anything about it - he was just in love with her beauty because he didnt get to know her - he couldnt love anyone else because hes always thinking about her.

Self's the Man - Philip Larkin

title - celebrating selfishness
Links - Dockery and Son - comparing two lives.
1st person - Larkin persona, talking about Arnold-been married a long time
Larkin poems:paradox

What Larkin thinks is a marriage - 'now she's there all day'
'she takes as her perk'
'kiddies'
'it's put a screw in this wall - he has no time at all'
'and that letter to her mother'

Stanza 1: 'a woman' - no name - dismissive - derogatory
Stanza 2: 'wasting his life on work' - thinks that there should be more to life
Stanza 3: 'he has no time at all' - larkin is alone and has all the time in the world but Arnold is always on the go and can never relax - contrast
Stanza 4: 'and that letter to her mother saying wont you come for the summer' - the mother-in-law, realism, dramatised - embedded dialogue.
Stanza 5: 'oh, no one can deny that Arnold is less selfish than i.' - sarcasm, society thinks Arnold is less selfish than larkin because he has a family.
Stanza 6: 'but wait, not so fast' - every human is selfish - being selfless makes you feel better which is actually selfish.
'is there such a contrast?' - different take on it - he is in fact  selfish on the inside - same as larkin.
'he was out for his own ends not just pleasing his friends' - Arnold got married to please himself.
Stanza 7: 'only im a better hand at knowing what i can stand!' - knows what he wanted and what he was prepared to do.

regular rhyme - less sincere, bouncy and jumpy, makes it comical
written in the style of not a very good poet - sarcasm, mocking the working class.

Talking In Bed - Philip Larkin

its about unity, realistic love
pathetic fallacy

Stanza 1: about a couple in bed - 'talking' - you usually sleep in bed. 'ought' - it should be the easiest thing to do but its not. should represent a couple that loves and cares for one another.
Stanza 2: 'more and more time passes silently' - silence, yet they are talking - harder to find things to talk about, they are not confronting their problems.
end of stanza moves on to talk about the weather.
Stanza 3:talks about the landscape but still relates to people - 'none of this cares for us' - we are alone in the world - you feel alone even tough theres someone next to you. so close but so far apart.
Stanza 4: 'more difficult to find words at once true and kind' - its hard to find what to say, and think of compliments.
'or not untrue and not unkind' - double negative, means the same thing - sometimes you have to lie to keep the relationship going.

Mr Bleaney - Philip Larkin

Larkin - looking at the room - fear of death - same as mr bleaney.

describes room - room is a metaphor for mr bleaneys life -  doesnt need to describe mr bleaney.

Title - grim and dull name - connotations - bleak, rainy, lean.

Stanza 1: Persona feels sympathy for mr bleaney. 'til they moved him' - from work to work? or he died? - he has no control of his own destiny.
also looks down on him - 'thin and frayed' - reflection on him, lack of energy or money.
unspoken questions - why and how he lived like this? why not change?
Stanza 2: description.
Stanza 3: feeling of empathy - 'so it happens that i lie where mr bleaney lay' - Larkin knows how mr bleaney felt - mr bleaneys life is better than Larkin's  - mr bleaney moved on - Larkin is one step behind.
Stanza 4: feeling of sympathy but also looking down on him - 'the jabbering set' - 'jab' - like a continuous punch - looking down, why would you want something like this.
'his preference for sauce to gravy' - looking down - unsophisticated.
Stanza 5: looking down - 'four aways' - like the lottery - Larkin thinks its mindless and delusional.
'the Frinton folk' - town, boring, not exotic, grim.
Sympathy - 'who put him up' - could be changed to 'who put up with him' - even they feel sorry for him.
Stanza 6: sympathy - 'frigid wind' - frozen, no fertility - closed to life, cold - similar to Larkin.
sympathy - 'telling himself that this was home' - he has nothing better.
persona looks down - 'grinned' - sly or fake, sounds like grim - not a nice word.
Mr Bleanys better than Larkin - appeared to have a happy life
Stanza 7: 'and at his age having no more to show than one hired box' - sympathy - died too soon,
looking down - thats all he had.
empathy - we just go from one box to another - flat - coffin, life - death, ends up being about Larkin.