Love Poems

Analysis of An Arundel Tomb, Love Songs in Age, and Wild Oats by Philip Larkin

(Put together in one posts because I don't have many notes on them)

You know, I'm really glad you can read those notes. Very helpful.

An Arundel Tomb

- What I mainly got from this was lying and love.

- 'Their proper habits vaguely shown' - superficial, what you see on the statues is only a representation of the couple, it doesn't show what they were really like.

- 'One sees, with a sharp tender shock, His hand withdrawn, holding her hand' - why is it such a surprise to see him holding her hand? Is it because they never held hands in life because they weren't that close?

- 'Rigidly, they persisted, through engths and breadths of time.' - always together, nothing can stop them, even if they didn't want to be together they still kept up appearance.

'Time had transfigured them into untruth.' They are lying to excuse their behaviour as time goes on.

Love Songs in Age

- 'She kept her songs, they kept so little space' - very tidy person, only kept them because they wouldn't make much difference.

- 'One bleached... One marked... One mended' - songs could represent her, how she's trying to make herself look younger - bleached her hair, had surgery etc.

- 'She found them, looking for something else' - Serendipity - happy mistake.

- When you get old, you realise everything you haven't done in life that you wanted to. When you're young you thing you have all the time in the world.

- 'Love... still promising to solve and satisfy... It had not done so then, and could not now'. Love is supposed to make your life interesting and fun, but it hasn't for her, and now it never can because her husband has died.

Wild Oats

- Man likes girl, gets with her friend, pines over what could have been.

- Very degrading towards the girls - fact that he actually calls them 'girls' when they are women, 'bosomy English rose and her friend in specs' - defined by their most noticeable feature.

- Man is self-conscious of his looks - took out the less attractive friend because the 'bosomy rose' was too good for him, thought she was trying not to laugh.

- Keeps pictures of other girl in his wallet - unsatisfied with specs girl.