Philip Larkin  Second child Only son Father= Local Government Unsuccessful schoolboy - bad eye sight and stammer Oxford - English Librarian, writing and publishing Many awards "My life is as simple as I can make it.. I almost never go out" Died of cancer aged 63

Wedding Wind Easy language Relatively formal structure Wind representing love, symbol of passion and change - links the energy of the natural world with the force of human love. Inner forces that possess the young bride are embodied in the images of the wind-changed world. Narrative poem celebrates joy of wedding - narrating wedding night and first morning of married life - recounts two experiences - strong narrative sequence unites both stanzas - first night, first day Conversational language Unusual in his use go a womans persona - voice of a young bride allows the persona to be completely divorced from the poet itself, unlike many of Larkins poems. he stands apart from the persona of the young woman, she is the speaker; is it her story Unusual for a Larkin poem as it celebrates the joy of passionate love. Wind described as "high" associated with elevated and elevating experiences - symbolic of change Transforming power of love and marriage Positive poem Stanza 1 - Wedding night "Wedding-day" and "wind" repeated in first two lines - main ideas repeated. "He must go and shut it, leaving me Stupid in candlelight" - doesn't like to be without him, stupid - stupor - sense of her maturity as the poem progresses, begins to ask more insightful questions and make grander statements Shall I be let to sleepNow this perpetual morning shares my bed? "I was sad that any man or beast that night could lack the happiness I had" - deep joy Stanza 2 - first day as married life - farmer / "Now in the day" - more mature, entry to womanhood, different stage of reflections. The ordinary, simple practicalities. Alliteration - "Carry a chipped pail to the chicken-run" "Thrashing my apron" - wind is a constant feature throughout. "Now this perpetual morning shares my bed" - everlasting new fresh exciting day "Can it borne" - may suggest pregnancy Synaesthesia - appealing to senses "banging, again and again" - restless "These new delighted lakes" - transferred epithet - transferring emotions onto different noun

At Grass Passing of time - life now and life then Racing horses Anonymity of horses celebrated not lamented Stanza 1 - the quiet and the ordinary Larkin as a detached observer Horses and landscape merged - "the eye can hardly pick them out" - contrast, they once would have been the focus, keenly watched by those who placed money on them, did not merge with land as they were racing by it Anonymous Stanza 2 - contrast, change of mood, wonder and nostalgia, excitement and frenzy "Two dozen distances sufficed to fable them out"  - run on lines, movement of horses, punctuation reflects movement of poem, conjure this frenzied atmosphere, emulating their movement. alliteration of "d" Nostalgia created as the horses names were known "Whereby their names were artificed" Stanza 3 -  flashbacks to human/man-made world horses once occupied "silks" "littered grass" Stanza 4 - "Do memories plague their ears like flies" - involvement of the poet with their story, reflection "They shake their heads" - they are happy here Contrast : between "littered grass" of stanza 3's man made world and the "unmolesting meadows" - they are at peace "at grass" Referred to past (S2) and returns to present in quick succession - evocative Stanza 5 - back to relaxed, quiet atmosphere of S1. long vowels "they have slipped their names and stand at ease" "gallop for what must be joy" - positive "Only the grooms and the groom's boy, with bridles in the evening come." crowds of racing day replaced by a man and a boy. beautiful closing (^), vowel at end, old fashioned feel, long vowels.

Church goingRecounting his experience of visiting a churchTitle - going to the church or the church going away? Stated by Larking to be "an entirely secular poem" NOT RELIGIOUSStyle - self-mocking, conversational and rich in detailLayout - stanzas identical in length, form of poem reflects the large, spacious architecture of a church, formal stanza pattern, seven nine line stanzas, mainly iambic pentameterReal experienceStanza 1 - feels as though he shouldn't be there, uninformed, wandering tourist"thud shut" - onomatopoeia"another church" boredom, monotony"flowers, cut for Sunday, brownish now" - the passing of time"some brass and stuff" - uniformedObserver"Hatless, i take off my cycle-clips in awkward reverence" - respect"Brewed God knows how long" - the one mention of God, brewed god, fermented godStanza 2 - uninformed, indifferent observer"the roof looks almost new, Clean or restored? Someone would know: I don't" - dedicated congregation"pronounced 'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant. The echoes snigger briefly"  - clumsy, place impressed him, "reflect the place not worth stopping for" - yet he did stop.Stanza 3-  moves from an account of a personal experience to address broader issues. more knowledgeable voice, ecclesiastical vocab "parchment, plate and pyx" (alliteration)"Yet stop I did" - reflective Moves from private "I" to the communal we and there is a corresponding shift from a descriptive to a reflective mode. "what we shall turn them into, if we shall keep a few cathedrals chronically on show"Will Christianity ("belief") be followed by superstition ("disbelief")S3 S4 - vaguely mocking and unconcerned for the future of churches "wondering what to look for, wondering, too, when churches fall completely out of use What shall we turn them into" - repetition of wonder, meditativeabandoned "rent-free to rain and sheep"non-subversive tone (not trying to disrupt or make trouble)Stanza 4 - predictions of what shall come of the church - images so vivid you almost forget that it is purely speculative. but nothing decisive, no full stops, only commas and semi colons."will dubious women come to make their children touch a particular stone" - superstitious rather than religious"Power of some sort will go on"traces the ruin of the church from the ground to the sky "grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky" - forcefulStanza 5 - back to "I" once again - wish to knows what will become of the church "I wonder"diverse groups of people use the church - community level - focus for many "crew" Stanza 6 - w/o the church, "marriage and birth and death" would have to be separated,  the church is where love procreation and death, the profound experiences in life, may be contemplated. the speaker is attracted to churches because they recognised the gave meaning to the three most fundamental and vital experiences in our lives."This special shell" - protective but fragile."It pleases me to stand here" - enjoyment but neutral. calm peaceful tone.Stanza 7 -  stanza 6 sets up the mood for the last stanza, breaks from the scepticism and indifference, speaks in tone of elevated seriousness. recognition of needs of human beings. everyone "has a hunger in himself to be more serious"written in a style that is weighty, dignified and quiet removed from the earlier colloquialisms of the poem. " a serious house on a serious earth it is"church offering happy ending.Andrew Motion (english poet) says that the speaker in the poem "speaks as someone without faith who is trying to recover the comfort is use to give"

An Arundel TombOur natural instinct to dwell on their love rather than their deathVoice of an observer - matter of fact - beginss as detached dismissive observer, but final lines of S2 "sees with a sharp and tender shock" earls hand holding that of his countess - stirred into meditation by this tender gesture.Meditation on the notion of the permanence of love and the strong hope humans have that love will remain - "Our almost-instinct"Reminder of the inevitability of death"The little dog under their feet" - human touchClasped hands - enduring and faithful loveConflict between the emotional force of the poem and its intellectual honesty -  emotional force wants us to proclaim "what will survive of us is love" while intellectual honesty declares "time has transfigured them into untruth"Not sentimental - aware and alert of transforming power of time, contemporary meaning of tomb at odds with original purpose.We have little control of our lives after we have goneThe illusion of art, we have no way of knowing that they were devoted lovers as suggested by this gestureMeditation on falsehood - "almost-instinct" "Time has transfigured them into untruth"lines 2 and 13 imply this falsehood "The earl and countess lie in stone" "They would not think to lie so long" - doubts about possibility of long last relationship. - punSimple, solidly structured stanzas, rhyme scheme consistent, run on lines in s2 allow the reader to experience w the poet the shock of seeing the earl holding his wives hand "His hand withdrawn, holding her hand" (alliteration)Transcendence of death through artDifference btw meaning of figures in their own age and the meaning they have in the modern age - our need to see them as emblems of love. - joint hands don't nessicarily rep their triumph over love but rather out delusionary wish that it does sopassing of time "snow fell, undated. light each summer thronged the grass. A bright litter of birdcalls..""The endless altered people came, Washing at their identity" - individuals lost as each observer has their own insightlast lines " our almost-instinct almost true: what will survive of us is love"Larkin muses in the fourth stanza, “How soon succeeding eyes begin / To look, not read,” noting the way people view a tomb they regard as an artifact; to look, not read, is to ignore the particulars of something in favor of a sheer visual impression, a sharp tender shock.

Bio

Wedding Wind

At Grass

Church Going

An arundel tomb