In What Ways Does Larkin Present the Glory and Successes of Life?

In What Ways Does Larkin Present the Glory and Successes of Life? Philip Larkin presents glory and success in life in a negative and often debasing nature. The overriding pessimism and bleakness in his poetry frequently debilitates the grandeur and triumph apparent in life. Despite endeavouring throughout life for achievement and prestige, his poems suggest that individuals will inevitably become "the old fools" no longer able to "alter things" or "(dance) all night" with former dignity replaced by the monotonous routine of "thin continuous dreaming" and "baffled absence". Larkin's underlying gloom attacks that which is traditionally seen as grand such as nature in 'The Trees', where the seemingly positive symbols of regeneration like "buds relax and spread/ their greenness" are undermined as Larkin proclaims pessimistically "no, they die too" and the suggestion that nature only "(begins) afresh" to cease and wither. Likewise the aspects of society that are typically viewed as worthwhile and admirable such as marriage, love and optimism of youth are derogated in 'This Be The Verse' by the blunt, plosive and shocking declaration of "They fuck you up, your mum and dad" and again by the confrontational and envious tone of "When I see a couple of kids/ and guess he's fucking her" added with the assurance that "this is paradise" in 'High Windows'. Larkin's cynicism corrupts

  • Word count: 1348
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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The Death of Marilyn Monroe, by Sharon Olds, on the surface speaks about the events that occur after the death of Marilyn Monroe

Quadri Ayesha F. Quadri Professor Tulacro English1B 5 November 2012 Death of a Beauty Star In the world today, we, the public, spend so much time admiring stars and many of us want to be like them. Yet, there is so much pressure placed on them and sometimes this becomes all too much for them to cope with, and they end up taking away their lives. This is the unpleasant and tragic side of being famous as we are all made to believe that fame will make you happy. In this poem, “The Death of Marilyn Monroe”, by Sharon Olds, on the surface speaks about the events that occur after the death of Marilyn Monroe. The mood of the poem is very depressing as the diction is very heavy-hearted, with words and phrases like “cold”, “heavy as iron”, “closed”, “caught”, “flattened”, lend themselves to create a very apt depiction of death ( 1-7). The poem interestingly revolves around the men, the “ambulance men” (1) who carried Monroe’s body “down the steps” (10). The ambulance men tried and continued with their daily routine “as they always did” (12), but found themselves traumatized such that they could not even meet each others’ eyes because one had nightmares, the second one looked different at his wife/kids and the last one stood there in the doorway listening to a women breathing. The next stanza is double spaced before it is continued, giving

  • Word count: 985
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF NISSIM EZEKIEL BY ANALYZING A POEM OF DEDICATION AND AFTER READING A PREDICTION

CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF EZEKIEL BY ANALYZING ‘A POEM OF DEDICATION’ AND ‘AFTER READING A PREDICTION’ ________________ “The true business of living,” Nissim Ezekiel has written “is seeing touching, kissing, / The epic of walking in the street and loving on the bed.” These lines are from a poem entitled “Conclusion”, these lines serve aptly for the introduction of a man whose true business over the last half of the 20th has been the making of verse. A poet of the city, Ezekiel has stridden the streets of Bombay, and revelled in the sensuous and inimitable pleasures of the companionship of women. The contours of the city, the curves of the body, and the landscapes of the human mind: Ezekiel has transverse these terrains with equal facility, and for a very long time the English reading public has stood to benefit from Ezekiel’s numerous excursions into verse. Ezekiel’s first collection of verse “A Time to Change,” appeared in 1952, in the infancy of India’s emergence from the womb of British rule, and with it Indian poetry in English, which had long been pregnant with possibilities, finally found a voice that commanded attention. A language placed in a foreign environment takes time to root itself, and at first finds expression with greater ease in prose than in verse, as the appearance of Raja Rao’s “Kanthapura” (1938) and G.V. Desani’s

  • Word count: 2222
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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