Betjemans poetry reveals an unfilled longing for youth. Do you agree?

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Shirwa        L6MO        pg.

‘Betjeman’s poetry reveals an unfilled longing for youth.’

Do you agree? You should base your answer on a detailed examination of two of the following:

‘Senex’; ‘Indoor Games near Newbury’; and an appropriate poem of your choice.

Perhaps it is true to say that the poem Indoor Games near Newbury depicts the painting of an unfilled longing for youth. The poem does indeed reveal almost a nostalgic longing for a time of young age – of blissful youth – where love is a wonderful innocence that is free from the cluttering troubles that adulthood brings. This longing for youth may, in fact, be nothing more than unfilled, for it is here that the poet exudes a certain degree of wishful thinking; of a desire to relive the wonderful simplicity of what he has had. The poem is itself littered with light sexual innuendos: ‘that dark and furry cupboard’; ‘hard against your party frock’; and ‘the sheet’s caressing’ all radiate a ‘deep’ eroticism, with emphasis being provided to childlike delight in lexis suggested ever so subtly.

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   Stanza four of Indoor Games near Newbury introduces a slight change in tone. ‘Love so pure it had to end’ connotes an idea of great significance – of being frightened by a burgeoning awareness of the child’s own sexuality. Here, Betjeman introduces a rather audacious rhyme scheme: “Love so strong that I was frighten’d/ When you gripped my fingers tight and”. The technique in which the poet rhymes the adjective “frighten’d” with the two words “tight and” evokes a kind of necessary bathos in the poem. Consequently, comic undertones arise, thus stopping the reader dwelling on this idea of ...

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