Philip Larkin was a practical pessimist. He had a knack for finding the blue, black and grey in things and never really allowed himself to get swept away by the beauty of the world around us. This backdrop is what, I believe, makes \u2018Love Songs in Age\u2019 so captivating.<\/p>\n
The poem talks about how an unnamed \u2018she\u2019 finds some old records that remind her of her former life; when her husband was still alive, her kids were still young and her memories were still fresh.<\/p>\n
Stylistically, Larkin starts with short syncopated phrases to echo the small, stacked records. He uses this mimesis to show how sidelined the records, and therefore the memories which they represent, are. He then starts to list the wear and tear each one has faced and, as we reach the end of the first stanza, we think we\u2019re in typical Larkin territory \u2013 a miserable description of a life lost.<\/p>\n
And then everything changes.<\/p>\n
The sentences start to open up as punctuation is dropped and short clauses give way to sweeping crescendos of prose. The poem itself becomes the music of the records. We see the same technique \u2013 mimesis \u2013 being used again, but this time to highlight the beauty and all-consuming power of music. We know from the highly-mimetic line \u2018word after sprawling hyphenated word\u2019 that this technique is intentional and this excitement, genuine. The use of the same poetic technique to show both weariness and wonder underlines Larkin\u2019s very hidden theme of hope, no matter the circumstances.<\/p>\n
Moving onto the final stanza it\u2019s as if Larkin has realised he\u2019s got carried away and tries to rein himself back in. Though try as he might, I believe the theme of hope still preserves. He cannot help but call even clich\u00e9d love \u2018much-mentioned brilliance\u2019 and the empathetic placement of \u2018now\u2019 leaves us in the present, with a view to the future, rather than sinking back into the past.<\/p>\n
There is so much more I could say about these three short stanzas but, before I fall into Larkin\u2019s trap of getting too carried away with a piece of art, I\u2019ll stop here and urge you to look deeper yourself \u2013 the poem is immensely rich so there\u2019s a lot to find.<\/p>\n
Love Songs In Age<\/strong><\/p>\n
She kept her songs, they took so little space,
\nThe covers pleased her:
\nOne bleached from lying in a sunny place,
\nOne marked in circles by a vase of water,
\nOne mended, when a tidy fit had seized her,
\nAnd coloured, by her daughter –
\nSo they had waited, till in widowhood
\nShe found them, looking for something else, and stood<\/p>\nRelearning how each frank submissive chord
\nHad ushered in
\nWord after sprawling hyphenated word,
\nAnd the unfailing sense of being young
\nSpread out like a spring-woken tree, wherein
\nThat hidden freshness, sung,
\nThat certainty of time laid up in store
\nAs when she played them first. But, even more,<\/p>\nThe glare of that much-mentioned brilliance, love,
\nBroke out, to show
\nIts bright incipience sailing above,
\nStill promising to solve, and satisfy,
\nAnd set unchangeably in order. So
\nTo pile them back, to cry,
\nWas hard, without lamely admitting how
\nIt had not done so then, and could not now.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philip Larkin was a practical pessimist. He had a knack for finding the blue, black and grey in things and never really allowed himself to get swept away by the beauty of the world around us. This backdrop is what, I believe, makes \u2018Love Songs in Age\u2019 so captivating. The poem talks about how an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":10789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12361,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions\/12361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}