Philip Larkin

Life

• Born August 9, 1922, in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, Philip Arthur Larkin was the second child of Sydney and Eva Larkin.
• His father being the city treasurer, he grew up in a “quite respectable house” in a middle-class neighborhood.
• His poems reflect a negative view of these early years, which he described as an “opaque childhood” punctuated by “forgotten boredom.”
• An undiagnosed near-sightedness, combined with a speech stammer, caused Larkin to withdraw from other children, learning instead to dislike them outright.
• After years of considering himself an “unsuccessful schoolboy,” he began feeling more comfortable during his final terms at the King Henry VIII high school, where he began writing prose and poetry, inspired by the lush novels of Henry James.

• Larkin’s first collection of poetry. The North Ship, was published before his two novels, it was not until Marvell Press published The Less Deceived in 1955 that he began to gain a reputation as a poet.
• His inclusion in the influential anthology New Lines, in which editor Robert Conquest first dubbed Larkin a member of “The Movement,” further reinforced his place in modern British literature.
• Larkin’s work appeared regularly in such notable journals as Atlantic Monthly and The Partisan Review. 
• These poems were later collected in the book The Whitsun Weddings in 1964. It was another ten years, in 1974, before High Windows appeared as his final collection of poetry.

The Whitsun Weddings

• The poem The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin is about the poet's journey to London in a train. The day is a Whitsun Day on which the British Government frees marriage taxes for one day. Therefore the day fascinates people belonging to the lower economic class because they cannot afford the payment of marriage taxes on other days. The poem on the surface level is a description of these experiences of that particular day.

• In the beginning the poet seems to be showing a kind of hatred for marriage or the newly married couples. Therefore, his description of physical appearances of those couples and their relatives is full of mockery. But towards the end of the poem, the poet realizes the importance of marriage. This time he realizes marriage to fertility (“the arrow shower” and “rain”) and thus to the continuity of the human race. The new knowledge contradicts his previous attitude towards marriage, it results in a kind of irony which affects the poet himself, therefore, the poem becomes self ironic.

• In the first and the second stanza, the poet describes his past experiences when he was traveling in a train. The description shows that the poet is beginning his journey from the country area to a city that is London. The important moment in the poem comes when newly married couples board on the train. These newly married couples are accompanied by their relatives. The description of their physical experiences with the words and phrases like “pomaded girls”, parodies of fashion” suggest that they are from the lower economic class. In each station and platform the poet witnesses the flow of such newly married couples. The poet virtually being an unmarried man is full of disgust for marriage with the arrival of those people and undergoes mystifying experiences of suffocation. He is put in an uneasy situation and starts mocking the appearances of those married couples and their relatives.

• The poet after the description of the wedding couples and their relatives once again focuses on scenes outside landscape. The description can be contrasted to the description of the landscape. The turning point in the poem comes at the end shown by the lines “A sense of falling, like an arrow shower sent out of sight, somewhere becomes rain”. In these lines the poet expresses his realization of importance of marriage. The poem suddenly becomes ironic because his realization contradicts his previous attitude towards marriage. In these lines “arrow, showers” and “rain” relate marriage to fertility and to the continuity of life. Therefore the ultimate knowledge about marriage is finally achieved by the poet.

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• The phrase ‘a happy funeral’ and ‘a religious wounding’ in the poem are noteworthy. The poet treats a marriage as a happy funeral and as a religious wounding. The implication is that, although a marriage is a happy event, it carries within the seeds of the death of happiness which is bound to occur in the course of time. Similarly, the ceremony of marriage is described here as a religious wounding, meaning that the ceremony would subsequently turn out to be a painful affair. Thus, Larkin takes a cynical view of marriage. The happiness of marriage cannot last forever according to him.

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Toads

• In this first stanza the speaker introduces the poem’s central question: “Why should I let the toad work / Squat on my life?” By comparing day-to-day office life to a toad, Larkin depicts the tedium of years sitting behind a desk. Squat, slimy, and fat, the toad seems to sit on the speaker of the poem and leave no room for fun. But Larkin can think of a possible escape—his intelligence. Like a sharp tool, perhaps he can “use [his] wit as a pitchfork / and drive the brute off.” Can he utilize his good education and sharp sense of humor in order to find a better way to survive?
• By directly comparing work to a toad, Larkin sets up a central metaphor which the remainder of the poem will extend and explore. Metaphors enable us to describe otherwise vague or difficult subjects—emotions, attitudes, etc.—in terms readers can “grasp” and understand with their senses.

• Continuing the metaphor, the speaker uses the second stanza to elaborate on the questions asked in the first stanza. We learn that work dominates his life six days out of seven each week, month after month, year to year. The proportion seems unreasonable, even dangerous. The toad work “soils” the speaker “With its sickening poison,” painting a grotesque picture of a man covered in poisonous slime while being crushed by the squatting weight. And what for? the speaker wonders. “Just for paying a few bills!”

• In the third stanza, the speaker defends his question by pointing out that many people “live on their wits,” as he had initially proposed in the first stanza. But the list Larkin offers us does not catalog the “witty” types we would first expect. Other than lecturers, who support themselves by teaching, the rest of the “folks” living on their wits—“lispers, / Losels, loblolly-men” and “louts”—may have had difficulties finding work. Lispers are those having or affecting the air of sophisticated culture, not persons with a speech impediment. A losel is a literally a “worthless person”; a lout is considered a “clumsy, stupid fellow.”

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• The speaker provides additional examples of people able to survive on very little in these lines. They do not need much—a fire in a bucket, a tin of sardines, a windfall of luck or money now and then—and they even “seem to like it.” Rather than spending six days of the week in an office in order to pay a few bills, these people manage to get by on what little is given to them.
• In the fifth stanza the speaker continues to focus his descriptive eye on the people who seem to get by without working. He notices that their nippers (a British slang for young boys) “have got bare feet,” perhaps because they are too poor to buy shoes. Similarly, their “unspeakable wives / are skinny as whippets,” those terribly-thin racing dogs. Although these families show distinct signs of severe poverty—barefoot children, emaciated parents—the speaker points out that no one actually starves.

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Church Going

• The poem ‘Church Going’ represents the thoughts of the poet as he enters a church. He is an agnostic but accepts the importance of religion in human culture. In the poem, the speaker questions the utility of churches and hence religion in our life and also seems to make an attempt to understand their attraction. Failing to realize their allure, he wonders to himself that what will happen to the churches, once they go out of fashion and fall to disuse.
• The poem that seems to be an inquiry into the role of religion in our lives today, describes the curiosity of the speaker on the same subject. However, in the end the narrator comes to the conclusion that churches will never go out of style, not only because of the integral role of religion in our society, but also because mankind has an innate need to believe in something greater then themselves.

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• The narrator talks about the present state of the church. Given that the narrator is an atheist, he makes sure that no one is around before he enters the church; he wants to be able to explore the mysticism of the church by himself. He lets the “door thud shut,” which is a bit disrespectful.
• The church is considered to be a holy place and holy places are to be highly cherished and treated with respect by all who enter them. Perhaps, letting the “door thud shut” was his way of seeing if the church was truly empty, because if it wasn’t empty then someone would appear when they heard the noise.
• The narrator sounds bored when he utters: “another church;” he seems to be uninterested in the church.

• The narrator begins to describe the church from his clumsy and ignorant perspective. “Little books” refer to bibles or hymn books. In this context, sprawling is referring to the flowers that have been picked for Sunday service and are spread out in all different directions. The flowers are now brown, which we can infer to mean that Sunday was at least a few days ago, and that no one has come by since then to throw them out. “Brass” could be referring to the monumental brass that is commonly found in English churches.
• He continues by saying “and stuff up at the holy end,” which shows how truly unimpressed and ignorant he really is about the church. “The holy end” refers to the pulpit and the surrounding area.

• He is still describing the church in general physical terms rather than the metaphysical ones that church is founded upon. He notices that the roof is semi-new; has it been restored or just cleaned? If it was just cleaned then it means that there is probably a caretaker hired to look after the church, but if it was restored that means that people actually care about this place and it isn’t as abandoned as the narrator perceives.
• He steps up to the lectern as if he is the priest about to give a sermon. He ends his sermon with “here endeth,” which is the traditional way to wrap-up a Bible reading in church.
• In the narrator’s opinion, religion is on a decline; so when he says “here endeth” he is not only talking about his sermon ending, he is also talking about religion ending; he is also saying that he will be the last person to recite those words in that church.
• He “donates an Irish sixpence,” which has no value in England. Donating valueless coinage to a church can be interpreted in two ways: first, he donates to show his disrespect for religion; or second, that donating to the church has no value.

• In stanza three, the narrator starts to imagine what the churches will be turned into once their original purpose is gone. He envisions the churches becoming a sort of museum frequently on exhibit for those who have never been to church or those who want to relive some childhood memory.
• The museums would display the church artifacts: parchments, plate, and pyx, in locked glass cases, so that they can’t be stolen; treating the church’s belongings in this way gives them value, which in the narrator’s opinion is something that the church lacks.
• The rest of the church should be used by the “rain and sheep,” because other than the artifacts the church is pretty useless. The narrator is saying that churches are useless, but not forgotten.

• Stanza four imagines the churches becoming places of superstition. Dubious women will come after dark to perform various superstitious rituals like “touching a particular stone,” picking “simples [medicinal herbs] for a cancer,” or “walking a dead one.”
• The power of that holy ground will remain in one form or another. Believing in superstition will end just like belief in God ended. The only things that will be left are the “grass, weedy pavement, brambles and the “sky.”
• The church will be overgrown with nature; what was once built from the earth will return to the earth, leaving only a few superficial remnants.

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• The church becomes more and more unrecognizable each week as the trees and plants overtake the structure. The buildings original purpose has become more and more obscure as well. He ponders who will be the very last person to seek out the church for its original purpose.
• He realizes religion will always have a place in the hearts of man, because they need to believe in something that is greater than themselves. Churches will never fall out of use.
• The word “destiny” is given to major life events in order to explain them. Destiny is said to be God’s will; the cliché “everything happens for a reason” comes to mind here. The fear of God’s wrath holds people accountable for their actions. God gives humans guidelines to live their lives, which is something that a lot of people need. Religion teaches you “right” from “wrong;” thus, religion becomes a necessary entity to keep society running smoothly.

Dockery and Son

• A former student speaks with the Dean of a school. Larkin went to school with Dockery, whose son now attends as well, according to the Dean. As Larkin recalls midnight episodes at school that he had to explain, the conversation slips away. When Larkin returns to his former room, it is locked. He boards a train and starts thinking about Dockery. His recollections of Dockery are hazy, and he falls asleep just as he begins to recall anything. When the train arrives in Sheffield, Larkin awakens. He switches trains and considers his own life. When Larkin learns that Dockery has a son while he has accomplished little, he worries that he has wasted his life.

• The titular Dockery appears only briefly in the poem. The poet's imagination is centred on this guy. The fact that Dockery has a school-aged son makes Larkin concerned that he has squandered his life. Dockery has since been forgotten. It makes no difference whether Dockery is a fictional character or a genuine person. The poet only needs to consider the facts: Dockery has a kid, and that boy is a measure of life achievement. Larkin is unsure whether he should consider himself a failure because he has nothing.

• Dockery and his son are established as a single entity in the poem's title. The title is written in the style of a family company where two generations collaborate. The poem's title serves as a sign above the business's front door. Dockery and his son are close and productive, and their bond is solid, as indicated by the title. Larkin notices this singular being and wonders how it ties to his own existence. The family company can be passed down from father to son as a legacy. Because he has no children, Larkin does not have a similar legacy.

• Larkin may unwind his thoughts on the train ride. He attempts to recall Dockery, but his recollections are so hazy that Dockery appears to be a ghost or a mirage. Dockery, like "clouds and universities subsiding gently from vision," has disappeared from Larkin's thoughts. Dockery and the school are part of a world that Larkin has physically and mentally left behind. He leaves the school physically on the train, and Dockery's lack of recall demonstrates how he left the school mentally.

• He bemoans the fact that he has "no son, no wife, /no house or land," but adds that it "seemed very normal." The concept that a person his age and social class should have a child astounds Larkin and jolts him out of his stupor. He wonders if Dockery consciously opted to have a child after evaluating his life. Like the rest of the poem, this speculation is a projection. Dockery may or may not have chosen to have a child, according to Larkin. He has no idea if Dockery has a wife or owns property. He has no idea if Dockery will be a success. To mourn his own failures, Larkin creates assumptions about everything. His gloominess is revealed by the success he assigns to Dockery while never learning the truth about his former classmate.

• "Life is first boredom, then dread," according to Larkin, and it persists and dies whether people use it properly or not. Dockery and Larkin share the trait of having survived the passage of time. It doesn't matter whether Dockery made good use of his time. Time passes and death awaits at the end of life are the only universal truths. Larkin amplifies his own pessimism by turning it outwards toward the world. He may see himself as a failure, but the world's true failing is that attempting to achieve anything is ultimately fruitless.