Compare the ways in which Larkin Essay Example for Free

Compare the ways in which Larkin Essay Compare the ways in which Larkin and Abse create a sense of place in their poems. In your response you must include detailed critical discussion of at least two of Larkin’s poems. Throughout the anthology ‘The Whitsun Weddings’, Larkin’s presents both himself and the narrators he uses as generally detached from places and shows he doesn’t feel emotionally attached to places traditionally considered sentimental, such as his parents’ house, as shown in ‘Home is So Sad’. Larkin also presents a dislike for urbanisation and industrialism, and finds comfort in unfamiliar places, â€Å"strangeness made sense†. In direct contrast, in ‘Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road†, Abse is shown to be emotionally overcome by his attachment to his parent’s house, and this sense of attachment can be shown throughout his poems, as he constantly shows his sentiment towards Wales and his hometown of Ogmore in particular. A sense of place is perhaps best shown by Larkin in his poem ‘Here’. In this poem, he creates a juxtaposition of country and cities, and through his language suggests that country is preferable. He uses words such as â€Å"cheap†, â€Å"grim† and â€Å"raw† to suggest he finds industrialism undesirable, and also suggests that the people are of a lower class and to be looked down on; â€Å"a cut-price crowd, urban yet simple†. The surging momentum of the poem’s opening lines imitates the swerving motion of the train, which reinforces Larkin’s views towards modernism, as the repetition of the verb â€Å"swerving† suggests an unpleasant sensation. In the third stanza, he creates a sense of city through description, â€Å"tattoo-shops, consulates, grim head-scarfed wives†, and chooses to show images with traditionally negative connotations, for example tattoos, to highlight his dislike for cities. The random acquisitiveness of the shoppers who converge makes them indistinguishable from the crowds in any other urban areas, suggesting the cities can be depersonalising. As may be expected of Larkin, he shows a disliking for consumerism, â€Å"cheap suits†, as a critic remarked ‘Larkin’s presentation of the growth of consumer culture evinces nostalgia for the innocence of the past’. Although for Larkin the countryside is depicted as â€Å"gold† and â€Å"shining†, as the train draws further from the country he begins to describe it with more negative words. Phrases such as â€Å"Isolate villages† and â€Å"unfenced existence† creates a semantic field that suggests isolation, which Larkin furthers by saying â€Å"loneliness clarifies†, suggesting that the space in the country allows for loneliness and neglect, as the people there are described as leading â€Å"removed lives†, whilst the â€Å"cluster† and â€Å"crowds† of the cities leave no space to feel alone. Larkin’s views on urbanisation are seen in other works of movement poets, who were â€Å"antimodernist†, therefore it could be argued that his views stem from the Movement. However, from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, Larkin’s attitudes could be due to the influence of growing up under the hardships of the postwar era, and the seemingly limitless freedoms of urbanisation didn’t conform to his traditional views. Acting as a direct juxtaposition to Larkin, Abse suggests he finds security and comfort in cities, as shown by the underlying feeling of attachment in his poem â€Å"Leaving Cardiff†. By never using place names, Larkin seemingly heightens his sense of place by allowing the reader to attach the industrial description to any town, whilst Abse could be argued to limit himself by through naming showing his poem to be about â€Å"Cardiff†. However, it could also be argued this demonstrates his attachment, as for Larkin the place is unimportant but it’s crucial for Abse. Abse’s language in ‘Leaving Cradiff’ creates a semantic field of lowness through images such as â€Å"slack hammocks† and â€Å"sea-birds drop†, which reflects his sadness at leaving home. Whilst Larkin shows no sentimentality towards home, Abse’s â€Å"eyes, like spaces, fill†, showing the extent of his attachment. The low mood of the poem is furthered by words such as â€Å"derelictions† and â€Å"the furthest star†. Interestingly, whilst Larkin amidst his isolation from place never suggests that place can affect people, Abse alludes to the opposite by saying â€Å"not for one second†¦can I be the same man†, which suggests some of who he is comes from his hometown. Through images such as these, Abse creates a sense of place in a different way to Larkin, as he uses little description but suggests the idea of belonging to a place, which the reader can see throughout the poem. Both poets write about returning to their parent’s homes after their deaths, allowing for a direct comparison between their descriptions and sense of attachment shown. In his poem ‘Home is so Sad’, there is a sense of discomfort, which suggests Larkin is never at ease even in his â€Å"home†. In contrast, Abse is shown to find comfort in his â€Å"last visit†. Larkin’s phrases such as â€Å"the last to go†, â€Å"withers† and â€Å"no heart† semantically suggests this lack of attachment. However in contrast to his ideas show in Here, â€Å"bereft of anyone to please† suggests that people can be shaped by a place, but Larkin simply isn’t. It is often remarked that Larkin was deeply affected by his parent’s unhappy marriage and that this influenced his decision not to get married, and this â€Å"unspent and boring youth† as Larkin once remarked is reflected in the line â€Å"a joyous shot at how things ought to be, long fallen wide†. It could thus be argued that Larkin lack of attachment comes from his personal experiences in the house, rather than a lack of sentimentality towards all places. Through listing objects, â€Å"the pictures†¦the cutlery†¦that vase† and never mentioning his parents Larkin completes the presentation of detachment from his â€Å"home†. Contrastingly, Abse repeatedly mentions his parents, â€Å"my father’s armchair†¦ so much dust, mother! † which suggests attachment as he attaches people to the place. â€Å"Dying room, rather† is a rather cynical tone for Larkin and could be used to demonstrate his attachment, as it clearly exemplifies his upset. Similarly, his personification of the objects, â€Å"the vase that yawned†¦the four-legged table in a fright† could be used to show this attachment, as he feels a need to personify to inanimate objects to give the â€Å"living room† the sense of life it always had to him. The literal and metaphorical â€Å"return to the dark† suggests the extent of his attachment to what was presumably his childhood home. The final line of the last stanza, through which he creates a sense of eerie quiet, â€Å"when the silence calmed, became profound† suggests he wants to replace the silence, as the stillness isn’t comforting, whereas Larkin often finds comfort in solitude and silence. Interestingly, Larkin successfully creates a sense of place in ‘the importance of elsewhere’ which is about Ireland and therefore not his home, which reinforces his lack of attachment and his uneasiness at home. After stating â€Å"Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home† Larkin continues to suggest he feels â€Å"welcome† whilst away as he and the country â€Å"were in touch†. He uses similar descriptions to in ‘Here’, still describing the countryside as preferable to cities, but the clear use of the pronoun â€Å"their† still suggests a detachment, as it becomes ‘him and them’. In the last stanza, Larkin alludes to understanding the effect of place on people, as says â€Å"here no elsewhere underwrites my existence†, which suggests that people can be heavily influenced by place. Through this, he creates a sense of place by allowing the reader to understand the place which ‘underwrites their existence†, which reinforces the idea that poetry is about reader-response, as I.A. Richards once said. In conclusion, the stark difference between the sense of place created in Larkin and Abse’s poetry is the sense of attachment. Whilst Larkin is detached, Abse feels sentimentally specifically towards his hometown and country. However, it could be argued that sense of sadness created by each poet stems from different reasoning, as Abse is sad due to his attachment to a place, whilst Larkin is generally detached from both place and people.