The twentieth century has provided the poetic universe with some of the most influential and prominent poets. The ideas and concepts conveyed by these poets have help to influence the works of other writers. Philip Arthur Larkin has been regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century. Most of Larkin’s poetry is condensed into four volumes of poetry: The North Ship, The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, and High Windows. His use of vulgar expressions helps to emphasize the main concept in his work and develops a unique writing style of his own. Using his own poetic technique, Larkin conveys his discontentment with his existence and shows the psychological suffering he endured throughout his life. By analyzing Larkin’s poetry, a reader can appreciate the uniqueness of his style and understand the significance of the concepts conveyed throughout his works. “The Old Fools” was published in, the fourth volume of poetry released during his lifetime, High Windows. It explores the idea of the speakers’ gerascophobia, or the fear of growing old, through analyzing the physical and mental deterioration of the elderly and their digression back into early childhood.
The descriptive language incorporated in this narrative helps to describe the physical characteristics of the elderly and allows the reader to understand the extent of the speaker’s fear of aging. Throughout this work the reader is greeted with various characteristics that are described in a stereotypical fashion to emphasize the minute flaws in the appearance of the elderly; “ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines” (Larkin 1426). Using these characteristics, the reader can view the deterioration of youth’s beauty into old a...
... middle of paper ...
... speaker shows the breakdown of youth’s beauty and the weakening of the machinery incorporated inside of the human body. By integrating this idea with the concept of cerebral impairment, leaves the speaker with a heightened sense of fear. Intertwining these two concepts, the speaker explores the idea of an “inverted childhood”, suggesting that when an individual reaches a peak in their development that they start to digress backwards in time, until they arrive at the primary stages in life. (Larkin 1427). “The Old Fools” explores the idea of the speakers’ gerascophobia, through analyzing the physical and mental deterioration of the elderly and their digression back into early childhood.
Works Cited
Larkin, Philip. "The Old Fools." The Broadview Anthology of British Literture: Concise Edition. Ed. Joseph Black. Vol. B. Tronto: Broadview Press, 2009. 1426-1427.
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
During the holocaust, a lot of ageism was shown amongst the Jewish people, particularly in Elie Wiesel's Night. Elderly characters could have prevented this discrimination by lying about their age. Unfortunately ageism is still present today, but elderly can counteract the discrimination by changing their attitudes to be more positive and kind. It is essential this issue is discussed, because it is an unfair limitation.
When our lives begin, we are innocent and life is beautiful, but as we grow older and time slowly and quickly passes we discover that not everything about life is quite so pleasing. Along with the joys and happiness we experience there is also pain, sadness and loneliness. Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" both tell us about older men who are experiencing these dreadful emotions.
...t P. and Stanley B. Greenfield, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1967
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
London: n.p., 1998. Print. fourth Bloomfield, Morton W. New Literary History. Winter ed. N.p.:
Larkin published his collection of poems ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ in 1964. The main focus of this collection is of post war Britain, but materialism and consumerism are also common themes which are evident in some of Larkin’s poetry. In Larkin’s poems ‘essential beauty’, ‘the large cool stores’ and ‘here’ all take reference to the ideology that there is a material world that the proletariat aspire to be a part of. ‘Mr Bleaney’ then shows the life of the working class, and that they don’t have these material possessions, which lead to little recognition of their lives. Over all they all suggests that because of the material world we have be born into it allows the bourgeoisies to condition the proletariat into accepting the capitalist society through creating a false
This movie demonstrates how sad it can be when a person realizes that they are in the old-age category. Some said they noticed it the first time in meetings that they were the oldest person in the place. Another person said that he realized there are limitations now due to the fact that he cannot do everything that he used to be able to do when he was younger. Another statement comes from a woman who is so embarrassed about her “ossified brain”, due to her inability to read without turning back to remember what she just read. Despite their increased age, and limitations their body puts on them, some older adults report that growing old has provided them with tremendous clarity on the world around them, and some say that they have “never felt
The world is changing and evolving at an astounding rate. Within the last one hundred years, the Western community has seen advances in technology and medicine that has improved the lifestyles and longevity of almost every individual. Within the last two hundred years, we have seen two World Wars, and countless disputes over false borders created by colonialists, slavery, and every horrid form of human suffering imaginable! Human lifestyles and cultures are changing every minute. While our grandparents and ancestors were growing-up, do you think that they ever imagined the world we live in today? What is to come is almost inconceivable to us now. In this world, the only thing we can be sure of is that everything will change. With all of these transformations happening, it is a wonder that a great poet may write words over one hundred years ago, that are still relevant in today’s modern world. It is also remarkable that their written words can tell us more about our present, than they did about our past. Is it just an illusion that our world is evolving, or do these great poets have the power to see into the future? In this brief essay, I will investigate the immortal characteristics of poetry written between 1794 and 1919. And, I will show that these classical poems can actually hold more relevance today, than they did in the year they were written. Along the way, we will pay close attention to the style of the poetry, and the strength of words and symbols used to intensify the poets’ revelations.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1c. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print. The.
Abrams, M.H., et al. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. 2 Vols. New York: Norton, 1993.
..., Stephen. "Growing older without aging? Positive aging, anti-ageism, and anti-aging." Generations 25.4 (2002): 27-32. Print.
The tragedy of old age is not the fact that each of us must grow old and die, but that the process of doing so has been made unnecessarily and at times excruciatingly painful, humiliating, debilitating and isolating through insensitivity, ignorance, and poverty (p. 2-3).
113- The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. of the book. Vol.
James Joyce emerged as a radical new narrative writer in modern times. Joyce conveyed this new writing style through his stylistic devices such as the stream of consciousness, and a complex set of mythic parallels and literary parodies. This mythic parallel is called an epiphany. “The Dead” by Joyce was written as a part of Joyce’s collection called “The Dubliners”. Joyce’s influence behind writing the short story was all around him. The growing nationalist Irish movement around Dublin, Ireland greatly influences Joyce’s inspiration for writing “The Dubliners”. Joyce attempted to create an original portrayal of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. The historical context for Joyce’s written work was the tense times before the Irish-English civil war broke out. An examination of his writing style reveals his significance as a modern writer.