Larkin is often portrayed as being obsessed by death, but High Windows is as much about life as it is about death. How true do you find this statement?

Larkin is often portrayed as being obsessed by death, but High Windows is as much about life as it is about death. How true do you find this statement? Larkin was 52 when High Windows was published and the collection is dominated by poems about the loss of youth, time passing and the imminence of death. Even in poems not explicitly based on these themes, they are still hinted at. Although some of the poems are about youth, some about aging and some on death, in a way all these are referring to mortality. I agree that there are poems, such as Show Saturday and To the Sea, which celebrate aspects of life but there are far fewer poems about life than about death. The Building is one of the bleakest poems, where Larkin describes a hospital and the stark inevitability of death. The poem builds up an atmosphere by the enigmatic treatment of the building; Larkin avoids spelling out that the building is a hospital but treats it as an atheistic cathedral, left in the atheistic society. Larkin begins the account outside the building. It can be seen from far away and resembles a 'lucent comb', emphasising the busyness of the workers and the way in which individuals are depersonalised, like bees in a hive. Its height is repeated in the 4th stanza as evidence of its importance within today's society. The comparison with the 'handsomest hotel' suggests that is far more important to

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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