One can find from reading only a handful of Philip Larkin\u2019s poetry that the man had a rather negative view of the world and distain for many aspects of life. It is a popular idea that artists sacrifice their joy and innocence to offer the world their thought-filled words and work. As they venture down into the darkest caverns of the human heart, concern their minds with heavy matters, and seek answers to unanswerable questions, they lose the luster of life. Their light becomes dark, joy is quieted, and contentment simply does not exist. Larkin appears to be a principle example of this. His work demonstrates hours of pensive silence, contemplating the deepest questions of humanity; and with those hours he provides a few lines of partial conclusions for his readers digest. Larkin\u2019s poem, \u201cWants\u201d is the expression of his findings. However, “Wants” by itself is rather ambiguous. It is a parable of the discoveries he made while in deep contemplation, and it can be interpreted by comparing it to his poem, “Aubade.” While “Wants” is the expression of his findings, “Aubade” is the manifestation of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Wants” opens with an expression of desire, \u201cBeyond all this, a wish to be alone.\u201d It is evident that the speaker has stumbled upon something grievous and pressing, although he is not clear what it is. Through the first stanza, he lists human activities that should hold within them meaning and enjoyment\u2014jewels of life that should have value. However, there is emptiness in his voice, and he dismisses the jewels as valueless. The stanza is wrapped in a desire for escape, and concluded with the same expression, \u201cBeyond all this, a wish to be alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second stanza begins with the same phrase reworded, \u201cBeneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.\u201d In this stanza, he lists actions by which humanity tries to ease and counter the sting of death; \u201clife insurance\u201d, \u201cfertility rites\u201d, \u201caversion of the eyes\u201d. Throughout, the speaker portrays the same empty and hopeless voice. It is a constant voice, unchanged from the first stanza to the end. He opens and closes both stanzas with a desire for oblivion and intentional loneliness. It is clear that his pensive hours led him to conclude that he needed to escape\u2014to physically isolate himself, and grow mentally absent. The reason for this conclusion is evident in the lines of “Aubade.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One can understand a lot about a person\u2019s heart by observing their actions. Larkin\u2019s work, “Aubade,” is a direct depiction of the speaker’s actions after the discoveries he made and implied in “Wants.” This poem has the same voice as the first\u2014hopeless and void of life. It opens with \u201cI work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.\u201d This is the physical and mental manifestation of escape. He physically escapes the world by sitting alone in the dark; waking at an hour when everyone else sleeps. He mentally escapes the world by consuming alcohol to a point where his mind is not fully present. Then he proceeds to explain the conclusion of his findings in lines 4 through 7: \u201cThen I see what\u2019s really always there: unresting death\u2026making all thought impossible but how and when I shall myself die.\u201d It is finally clear that the meaning behind the parable-poem “Wants” is that death is inevitable and there is nothing for him after it comes. He fears its coming, and the only way to be rid of his fear is through oblivion in isolation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In “Wants,” the speaker listed what he believed were actions by which man tries to ease the pain of death. He expands upon this list in “Aubade,” focusing on religion and the \u201cspecious stuff\u201d that people say. He explains that these attempts are unhelpful and only serve to increase his fear, and thus, his need to escape. The pleasurable activities he listed and dismissed in the first stanza of \u2018Wants\u2019 are those that he cannot appreciate because his \u201cmind blanks at the glare\u2026[of] the total emptiness for ever, the sure extinction.\u201d Further, he explains that the realization of death\u2019s certainty \u201crages out in furnace-fear when we are caught without people or drink.\u201d Larkin\u2019s conclusion from “Wants” is evident through “Aubade:” without escape of some sort, the fear of death overpowers all the beauty that life has to offer, to the point where life is no longer enjoyable. Life goes on, but for Larkin it is all vain. This is what he offers to humanity through the hours he spent in deep thought with his loathsome pen. No hope, no light, no life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
January 29, 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Works Cited:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Larkin, Philip. “A Study of Reading Habits.\u201d Philip Larkin Collected Poems<\/em>, edited by Anthony Thwaite, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, p. 102.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One can find from reading only a handful of Philip Larkin\u2019s poetry that the man had a rather negative view of the world and distain for many aspects of life. It is a popular idea that artists sacrifice their joy and innocence to offer the world their thought-filled words and work. As they venture down…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[105,107,104,106],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critical-analyses","tag-aubade","tag-explication","tag-philip-larkin","tag-wants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions\/288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bexroden.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}