Philip Larkins and His Major Poems

Philip Larkin


Philip Larkin spent his early years in Coventry. Warwickshire. where he was born on 9 August 1922 and later went to Oxford for higher education. At Oxford. In the 1950s he made friends with Kingsley Amis, a fellow student, and came into contact with other writers like John Wain. D. J, Robert Conquest. Donald Davie. and others. Together they brought out the poems in two anthologies. D. J. Enright, and New: Lines, ed. Robert Conquest. This was the beginning of a reactionary movement against the Eliot-Auden school. It heralded the beginning of the "Movement," the new wave in the English poetic tradition.


I REMEMBER I REMEMBER


"I Remember, I Remember" Larkin's reminiscence of childhood, which is generally believed to be a golden period. has no halo of divinity about it. He does not embark on lengthy accounts of his "Fair seedtime," the way Wordsworth does; nor does he grow nostalgic about "lamb-white days" in the manner of Dylan Thomas.


Toads-


Pitchfork=a farm tool with a long handle and two sharp metal prongs, used for lifting hay.

Lout=an uncouth and aggressive man or boy.

pauper=Extremely poor person

Nippers=kids

Whippet=a super-skinny dog breed similar to a greyhound. 

Line 24=this line echoes one of Prospero's lines (IV.i.156-157) from The Tempest.Just like the line from The Tempest, line 24 signals the speaker's acceptance of reality. 

Hunkers= Its hips, butt, and upper thighs ("hunkers") are "heavy as hard luck, / And cold as snow."

Blarney=talk which aims to charm, flatter, or persuade (often considered typical of Irish people).


https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/poetry/toads-philip-larkin/summary/stanza-9


http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/philip_larkin/poems/14525


Toads Revisited


Palsied=Shivering
Hare-eyed=The condition in which the eyelids are unable to close
Jittery=nervous or unable to relax.
Lobelias=a chiefly tropical or subtropical plant of the bellflower family, in particular an annual widely grown as a bedding plant. Some kinds are aquatic, and some grow as thick-trunked shrubs or trees on African mountains.


http://greatpoetryexplained.blogspot.com/2016/02/toads-revisited-by-philip-larkin.html


Mr Bleany


Frayed=of a fabric, rope, or cord) unravelled or worn at the edge.

Sill=a shelf or slab of stone, wood, or metal at the foot of a window opening or doorway.

Tussocky = with small areas where the grass is longer and thicker than the grass around them.

Tousling =make (a person's hair) untidy.

Fusty=smelling stale, damp, or stuffy.


https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/mr-bleaney/

Church Going

 written in 1954, and published in 1955
 iambic tetrameter
 ababcadcd
religious imagery and words.
In the Collection - Church going with Toads revisited.
Title = the process of going to church and the churches disappearing from our lives.

Agnostic=a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.

https://www.literaturewise.in/mdl/mod/page/view.php?id=116

The Whitsun Weddings


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48411/the-whitsun-weddings

At Grass

https://allpoetry.com/At-Grass


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