“Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow.”
When speaking of the soldier a cynical tone emerges.
“Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour; sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.”
The soldier changes and plays the part of the well fed wise judge. He has an outward appearance of severity and quote wise sayings. A mocking tone is apparent here.
“Full of wise saws and modern instances;”
Now growing older and thinner. Last in his now too big clothes. Breathing difficulties making “pipes and whistles in his sound” we have reached the sixth age.
“For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.”
The last scene of all is solemn and final when the mind and the body slow down before death. Giving the ending scene to the play.
“Is second childishness and mere oblivion
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
Louis McNeice’s Bagpipe Music is a very cynical view of life after the way war has changed it. The points he makes are true but perhaps exaggerated to emphasis his point, very satirical.
“Take it away; I’m through with over production.”
“It’s no go the herring Board, it’s no go the bible,
All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idol.”
HE makes everyone sound as if they have no morals and classes everyone in the same group, that they are all shallow and only after money and woman. There is also an attack of peoples believes and values.
“It’s no go my honey love it’s no go my poppet;”
In Shakespeare’s time this behaviour would not be widespread and talked about in this same kind of way. When he is talking about the “player” in this stage of his life he sounds like a good decent man. Perhaps if Shakespeare had of lived in the same time his view on life at this stage would have been the same as Louise McNeices. Even when McNeice speaks of death he still uses humour comparing life to breaking a barometer.
“But if you break the bloody glass you won’t hold up the weather.”
“The Old Fools” is almost mocking to old people as it sounds as if they like being like this “old fool,” “Keep on pissing yourself, ”Shakespeare and Larkin both use the link that old age is the “second childhood”, “inverted childhood”. As you read through you can relate to what Larkin is saying and almost agree to it. There is an emphasis on some of the last lines of some of the verses.
“Why aren’t they screaming?”
“How can they ignore it?”
This makes the lines stand out more and makes you think over the question he is asking. The overall tone of the poem is bleak, gloomy and harrowing as it makes you realise this will be you and the people you know “We shall find out.” Perhaps it only sounds like Larkin is talking about all old people as he has set the poem in the situation of an old peoples home or ward in a hospital and talking about the worse among them. Shakespeare gives old people more dignity when he is talking about them unlike making them sound totally unable of helping themselves.
The overall view of life Shakespeare gives in “The Seven Ages of Man” is very accurate at describing the way people grow up and change how they act. Larkin and McNeice use comedy to convey the meaning in their poems but they both use this very well as in both cases you end up thinking is this true? All the poems give a real view of life just in a different way to each other but they all conclude by the end of life.
