Name-Roxana chowdhury

Id -1603010402459
Section-A
Batch- 30th
Course Code-802
Date- 30/9/20

2)Explore Larkin’s treatment of the inevitability of death in “Aubade”?

Answer: Philip Larkin was born in Coventry England in 1922. He earned his B.A from St.John’s
College,Oxford,where he befriended novelist.In later, he became one of the greatest poet . He wrote
many poem such as “collected poem “, “High windows “” A girl in window “. ,Aubade”.etc

According to Larkin , death Is the total eternal emptiness.His perspective to death is totally
view.To describe his view on death, he wrote Aubade .

Aubade is traditionally a song or poem that greets the dawn, and usually has a love theme
involving lovers parting as dawn breaks. Philip Larkin’s ‘Aubade’ is a poem about death, and specifically
the poet’s own growing sense of his mortality. It is a beautifully dark poem about the inescapable nature
of death and humankind’s moments of despair. The fear of death is an omnipresent theme in Larkin's
poetry. This poem became the culmination of his life and work and contains basic ideas of Larkin’s
philosophical and literary credo.

According to Larkin, death is the total and eternal emptiness. What is most terrifying about this
nothingness is the complete loss of self-awareness, and Larkin’s recommended coping mechanism to deal
with the anxieties produced from the fear of death is to attempt to get lost in routine distractions. The
very first lines of the poem describe typical day of routine life of the person, who does not see any sense
in his life and spends dull days and sleepless nights thinking about inevitable death. What is notable, even
during short period of life people can’t get liberate of the threat of death. Ceaseless nothingness appears
to be the biggest Larkin’s fear and this thought does not let him fall asleep at nights and deprives him of
calm and felicity when he is awake. From the first stanza we can tell the narrator works every day, drinks
when he gets home every night, and has these pre-dawn sessions of existential panic frequently; these
are his routine distractions.

Throughout this poem, Larkin’s speaker takes the reader into his darkest thoughts, those he has early in
the morning before the sun comes up. There, he thinks about his future and the fact that death is always
right there at the edge of his life. There is nothing in the world that can soothe the fear of death, he says.
Religion tried, but it’s useless in the face of what’s to come. The speaker also notes how it’s in these
moments, when there is so “drink” or friendly faces as distractions, the reality of death sets in. It’s going
to come for you whether you whine about it or show courage in the face of it.

‘Aubade’ is about the poet waking at four in the morning to ‘soundless dark’ and being gripped by the
terror of his own death which, with the dawning of a new day, is ‘a whole day nearer now’. He cannot say
how, where, or when he will die, but that doesn’t stop him from contemplating his own demise – a
horrifying thought and contemplating the horror of his death, which is always one day nearer. He is not
in despair at having wasted his life, because he has accepted that it was his innate destiny to always have
to struggle against difficult odds. His vision of death is designed by his philosophical credo and religious
beliefs. What scares him most is the loss of all sensory recognitions and self-awareness. To Larkin, the real
horror of being dead is the inability to recognize it using lively senses. He is simply in existential terror of
certain personal extinction. He spends hours trying to speculate the state, where all the senses cease their
existence and a person losses all connections with the existence.

According to Larkin, death is an inescapable and eternal nothingness. From this, readers can surmise that
the poet does not believe in any form of afterlife, whether that be heaven, reincarnation, or otherwise.
As the fear of death is a universal and ever-present anxiety, human beings have and will forever continue
to develop strategies to deal with the inevitable end we must all reach. In Aubade, Larkin reflects on these
coping mechanisms, and explains how they fail to work for the subject of his poem. Larkin’s pessimistic
attitude towards religions does not let him accept any kind of non-rational explanation of the life after
dead. Larkin is an atheist, and so does not accept religion as an appropriate answer to the hopelessness
of death. Religion is simply a worn-out charade, while rationalism fails to take into account that the idea
of the total loss of sensation is precisely what is so terrifying about death. He acknowledges briefly how
religion may act as a comfort for some, but immediately dismisses it as merely an ineffective trick. Some
humans choose to accept the inevitability of death, and put on a brave face. He speaks about courage,
which turns to be useless in the face of death.

Looking for a possible description of the state of non-living, Larkin can’t escape a thought that this state
will last forever. He regards the death not as a single event, which causes transformation, but rather as a
continuous process of perpetual anaesthesia, where people stay forever. He contemptuously dismisses
as potential consolations for his mortality both religious faith and the rationalist assurance that one
cannot be hurt by what one cannot feel. The theme of death and fear of dying goes through

In conclusion, we can say that Philip describes death, on a different point of view. In this view, death can’t
be ignored, when it comes.

4) why does Dylan Thomas want his father to rage against the dying of the light in “ Do Not Go Gentle
into that Good Night ?”

Answer: Dylan Thomas was a Walesh poet and also a writer. He was born in October 27, 1914 . His full
name was Dylan Marlais Thomas. He wrote many poems such as “ do not go gentle into that good night “
, “ under milk wood “ , “ play for voices” .

Dylan Thomas wrote many famous poems. Of them “ Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night “
written in 1947 . It is Thomas’s most famous work as well as one of the most famous examples of a
villanelle.
 It is said that the poem “ Do not go Gentle into that Good Night “ was written by the sickness
and eventual death of Thomas father, David John . David John died in 16th 1952 , at the age of seventy six
. This event turned out to be very significant in the life of Dylan Thomas.

David John taught English at the grammar school Dylan attended. David believed his
education merited him to a higher position. He wrote himself poetry and introduced his son to literature
at an early age , teaching him to recite verses by Shakespeare by age four.

Thomas’s father was in charge of the school’s magazine where Thomas studied. Dylan had
always written poetry. He written poetry not only to please himself, but also his father who had always
gave inspiration. That’s why,when Dylan’s father David was ill, he became upset, he was shattered. The
illness of his father was unbearable to Thomas.

Therefore, Thomas had written the poem “ Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night “ to dedicate
his father, addressing his father, to recite dying peacefully, to fight hard against death. Thomas knew that
death is the inevitable end to every life, but one should not give up to easily. For that, the poet had used
many metaphors in this poem to describe this fact to his father.

The son used dark and the end of the A’s metaphors for death. “ The dying of the night “ brings a
sudden illumination to old men so that they see their lives clearly when it is too late.

Next, the son told his father how wise and good men had sent their lives and that they didn’t
give up easily through metaphors, imagery, “ wise men “ , “ good men “.

The son next told his father how wild and grave men also struggled with death through
imagery.

In conclusion, we can say that the son had used several metaphors for his father to fight
against death, to reinforce the son’s message to his father in the poem “ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good
Night “.

5) Comment on the change of heart the narrator has in Larkin’s poem “The Whitsun Weddings”?

Answer: Larkin is Britain’s poet . Larkin is a great poet of middle age. His famous poem Whitsun or Whit
Sunday is the seventh Sunday after Easter , deep into spring, when people often marry Larkin see many
wedding parties during an actual train ride , which give him the Germ of the poem.

The central image of the poem is Larkin creates an image of continuity between sky and city and
water that train itself mimics. The form of an unfolding movement that connects district locations and
points of time.

Larkin’s genius for abstracting from experience is heightened in this poem, in which his
talents so brilliantly serve the narrative of a simple discovery. That each unique wedding party is in truth
like all other wedding party is in truth like all the other parties gathering that day, a perception only the
poet realizes, because he is the privileged position of witnessing each one . He is single one like sky . All
the whitsun weddings meet along the train line and the line of consciousness that belongs to the poet.

The Poem refuser any sentimentality suggested by such a formulation ,however,by insisting on
each individual’s separateness ,alongside the others on the train.

The train now aimed at its london destination,become an arraw ,and,whose arrow could it
be,on a day of so many wedding which changes indifference to desire ,turns to love also turns to new
forms of neglect,of difficulty ,of disappointment

In conclusion,all things returned to the conditions of nature,if the process entails loss,it is
paradoxically a redeeming loss,for the process of losing has in the wonder of mutation which is a source
of poetry itself.

6) Comment on the unique Portrayal of Love in W.H. Auden’s “ Lullaby “.

Answer: W.H. Auden is an Anglo - American poet. W.H.Auden wrote many poems . Auden’s poetry is
mainly noted for its morals, love theme. W.H Auden exerted a major influence on the poetry of the 20th
Century.

W.H. Auden has written many love poems. Of them “ Lullaby “. It was the most significant one. In
this poem, passionate love is primary and necessary. The main theme of the poem is love caught at its
most intense movement.
Love perhaps constitutes the largest portion of any literature in any language and has always
been the favourite theme of poets, authors , playwrights and artists. In fact, we see different love stories
in various from culture to culture. In many poems, love is considered to divine and the beloved is
compared to being devine. Lovers are supposed to be soulmates and it only takes but moment to fall for
each other when they meet. Such are the notions usually used in love poems.

Auden’s beloved love poems “ Lullaby “ was written in the 1930s.The poem begins with the
speaker addressing his lovers, perhaps in a post coital situation. He looks down at the lover sleeping on
his own “ faithless “ arm . He shifts his focus to the present,however, having his lover in his arms all night.
The fleeting overnight joy is worthwhile even if his lover eventually age and die .

The second stanza Auden ruminates further on the nature of short-term love. The
boundaries between lovers and lover , body and soul , are erased , although their love is “ Ordinary “.

The third stanza continues this theme of difficulties of such a tryst.

In the fourth stanza the speaker returns to the beauty of their love. The speaker hopes that
the “involuntary powers” of love will carry his lover through the day.The poem despite its realistic outlook
on morality and disappointment with traditional norms of fed elite , is a potent expression of a hope for
timeless and profound love that extends beyond a single adulterous night.

In conclusion, we can say that in the poem “ Lullaby “. Auden has showed a very beautiful love-
story. Auden has showed the lovers deep bounding . In fact, W.H. Auden’s love poem “ Lullaby “ is so
unique as it goes against almost every traditional notion of love, yet strongly stands to be a wonderful
poem of homosexual as well as humanitarian love by its own right.