|
READ THIS
The poet contemplates a problem which is a common one in the modern world: the breakdown of a
marital relationship. Set in the 1960s when divorce was frowned upon and difficult to achieve, the poet
looks at the emotional silence which often envelopes a long relationship, and the difficulty that this gives
rise to when there is no way out for the couple.
ABOUT THE POET
Philip Arthur Larkin was an English poet and novelist. He was born in Coventry in August 1922 to a father
who was a lover of literature and an ardent supporter of Nazism, attending two Nuremberg rallies during
the mid-1930s.
His father also introduced him at an early age to the works of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and
D.H. Lawrence, men who would have a profound effect on the young man's poetic development.
He attended Oxford University during the early years of World War II, graduating in English Language and
Literature. He graduated in 1943 and then entered the world of librarianship, becoming the university
librarian at Hull University where he would work for some 30 years. It was during that period that he would
produce the bulk of his poetry.
His work has been described as portraying "a glum accuracy about English emotions, places and
relationships". There would appear to be not much by way of positivity in his poetry. One critic referred
to him as "the saddest heart in the post-war supermarket".
Larkin was by no means a flamboyant man as many poets are. Indeed, he appears to have shunned the
limelight wherever possible. He has also been described as a misogynist.
Larkin received several awards for his work, including the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered
the position of Poet Laureate in 1984 but he declined the honour.
He died on 2 December 1985 from inoperable throat cancer. He was then just 63 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
|
TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest."
- Why should talking in bed be the easiest? (4)
[Need help?]
There is surely no more intimate place to be than side by side in bed? One would think that two people
would have much in common before allowing themselves into that situation. Conversation should
therefore be easy for them. After all, it's not exactly like attempting to communicate with a total stranger
on a train.
|
- What do you think the poet means when he speaks of "lying there together"? (6)
[Need help?]
The word "lying" has two possible meanings. It could mean lying side by side in bed. Or it could mean
telling untruths. Which of these two meanings does the poet have in mind?
Clearly the first. After all, he is talking about a married couple lying together side-by-side in bed.
On the other hand, he is also speaking about an old, worn-out relationship where the two people have long
become used to lying to each other, telling untruths, covering up their real emotions, hiding their inner
thoughts from the other.
|
- What would the poet have in mind when he says that lying together "goes back so
far"? (2)
[Need help?]
The poet could mean three things. First, he could be referring to a marriage which is relatively old, which
goes back a long way.
On the other hand, he could be referring to the fact that marriage itself is an ancient custom which goes
back a long, long way.
He might also mean that married couples telling untruths to each other is a very old tradition.
|
- Why should lying in bed together be "an emblem of two people being honest"? (4)
[Need help?]
Theoretically, two people should not be in such an intimate situation unless they are each being totally
honest with the other. Otherwise, one is merely using the other. Marriage and intimacy in bed, says the
poet, should therefore be the emblem or symbol of honesty - or else it was false from the very beginning.
|
"Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds in the sky."
- In your opinion, why is it that more and more time in marriage "passes silently"? (10)
[Need help?]
There are no right or wrong answers here. One needs to look at marriage in depth, its purpose, its
problems, its failures.
You should look at things like:
- do people spend enough time before marriage in getting to know each other?
- do people get married too speedily?
- do married couples have enough in common to spend a lifetime together?
- do couples take the time to pursue the art of a creative relationship?
- do they take the trouble to listen carefully when the other talks?
- does each perhaps talk too much?
What else can you think of?
|
- Why does the poet refer to the wind? How does the wind reflect on the marital
silence? (4)
[Need help?]
In some ways, the wind is the opposite of this marital silence. While the couple lie silently brooding in bed,
the winds gusts noisily outside.
The noise of the wind, on the other hand, highlights the silence between the couple.
And what about the turbulence of the wind? In a sense, there is also turbulence in the couple's
relationship but it is a silent turbulence. The noisy wind, however, draws their attention to the turbulence
which is in their own silent lives.
|
- The poet employs a double negative when he says, "the wind's incomplete unrest". What does he
mean? Does a double negative leave us with a positive, as one is often taught? (4)
[Need help?]
The wind's turbulence is not a complete one. It blows and then rests, blows and then rests. The unrest
is not a complete unrest. The unrest comes and goes. The double negative is therefore completely
acceptable and does not in any way produce a positive.
|
- What is the poet's point when he says that the wind "builds and disperses clouds in the
sky"? (4)
[Need help?]
The building and dispersing of clouds in the sky is a metaphor for their marriage. Clouds are forever
forming within the relationship but they are usually dispersed by means of intimate conversation, doing
things together. With all conversation gone, on the other hand, there is no way in which the metaphorical
clouds can be dispersed.
The noisy wind is therefore something that is needed in the relationship, i.e. healthy conversation and
activity which allows each to let off steam, for the brooding clouds to be dispersed.
|
"And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us."
- What is the point of the poet's reference to the dark towns heaped on the horizon? (4)
[Need help?]
It is not fully clear what the poet means by this image of the "dark towns". Is he perhaps saying that what
is happening in this bed is universal through all the towns, amongst all married couples? That everywhere
there are dark towns of silence? What do you think?
|
- What point is the poet making about the breakdown in the marital relationship when he says that "none
of this cares for us"? (4)
[Need help?]
The truth is that nobody cares. Marital stress is a personal matter and needs to be solved personally,
through talking about it. Indeed, any attempt by a third party to interfere only makes it worse. So neither
the noisy wind nor the dark town - nor anything else for that matter - has any care for what is going on
inside the bedroom.
|
|
