‘I lose all but the outline of the still and withering leaves on half-emptied trees’ – the enjambment used after ‘withering’ emphasises the word and implies that their love is threatened by time. Larkin uses natural imagery with the idea that leaves wither just as love withers. His perceives love as something beautiful, but something that has an ugly ending.
In the final stanza, he shows how his love has faded –‘Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding’ – the word ‘tiny’ shows how over time his love for her isn’t the same. For example, at the beginning of the poem he only thought of her face ‘among all faces’ but now, her hands are tiny in the air which suggests he is no longer thinking of her like he used to. This emphasises how vulnerable love is compared to huge possibility it could be destroyed.
‘Love Songs in Age’ however, suggests a similar idea that love is defeated by time but also death. For example, ‘So they had waited’, this use of personification suggests the love songs waited until her husband died so they could remind her what it was like to be young and in love and to ultimately hurt her. This idea implies that her love for her husband isn’t strong enough to be happy about the memories they shared but instead resent the idea of loneliness.
Additionally, ‘unfailing sense of being young’ suggests the idea that everyone believes they will stay young forever and that love will always be as beautiful as it first was. This concept insinuates that her love had turned bitter over time and she wants to relive the memories, perhaps to feel closer to her husband. ‘Glare of that much mentioned brilliance’ – this also suggests this idea because it gives the idea that love is blindingly beautiful when young and you can’t see the reality of it, which is that it changes over time.
Finally, the last two lines of the poem –Was hard, without lamely admitting how, It had not done so then, and could now’ the rhyming couplet emphasises the idea that love was not what it promised to be.
St. Valentines Night and Postcard to his Wife (Abse), both suggest a different idea of love. For example, in St. Valentines Night: ‘Slow and sensual the sweet unwrapping’ – emphasises the passion in love when young, and suggests that love it exciting when young. Abse also presents love as somewhat invincible –‘Thou shalt die’- in the poem he mentions Eros the god of love, and portrays him as winning a battle with death, Thanatos. He also presents sex as beating death, because sex is the creation of new life. This differs from Larkin greatly as he allows his love to fade, and won’t help himself.
‘Postcard to his Wife’ presents love in a much stronger sense, and how it lives with you forever, for example, ‘So come home now. The beds too big! Make excuses’, the short sentences used emphasise his desperation to be with his wife again. Although he misses her, he presents love as everlasting, and even though she’s dead, his love for her will never die. Furthermore, ‘Blessed, mimic the old gods’, this shows how he wants to express his love for her in a physical way, and he feels blessed to have been with her.
To conclude, Larkin presents love as something that will fade, and not worth fighting for. He doesn’t focus on the positives to being in love, he focuses purely on his pain and anguish at the idea his love is fading, which isn’t really love at all. Abse however portrays his love as growing stronger for his wife even though she has died, he’s happy to have met her and to be in love with her.
by
dummy78 (student)
