Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings all have some very similar characteristics. They often portray a very reflective and often cynical view of life, suggesting that the persona in most of the poems is a bit of an outsider and an introvert. Isolation isn't always a bad thing in his eyes.
Two key themes that are both VERY prominent are death and time.
His message through the poems is essentially that time will always keep moving forward, once it's gone you can never get it back and it will eventually get us all. This is essentially the same message portrayed in the faux children's internet series 'Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'. This falsely friendly video's underlying message is also that we can never get time back, and the only thing left for us is death.
The persona will often start out as very dismissive, but as the poem progresses will look deeper into the subject of the poem, until reaching an epiphany and then the attitude changes completely.
You need to be a bit more systematic about blogging. Make usre there is apost on all the Larkin poems we have done so far. Write the homework post about Abse and post also your annotated Abse poem
ReplyDelete