© 2019 JETIR June 2019, Volume 6, Issue 6 www.jetir.

org (ISSN-2349-5162)

PHILIP LARKIN ON THE THEME OF TIME

AND DEATH
Dr. Sangeeta Sharma
Associate Professor
Govt. Meera Girls College
Udaipur (Raj.)
Abstract
Death and time are the widely identified themes in the poems of larkin. But the significance and importance lies in the way they
are seen and dealt with. Moreover these themes have grown in the poetic personality and have become an essential part of his
sensibility which he acquired during the period of war and afterwards. He has experienced them as the truth of life. In f act, time
and death are traditional themes, they simply change their face in the course of time. He describes death as an ultimate reality to
which a human being turns his back. Although, he knows that the wheel of time spins out and all created things wil l meet their
end, yet does not want to acknowledge. He presents death and time in conjunction with the feeling of loneliness and emptiness
and thus differs from his contemporaries.

Keywords :
1. Imminence, 2. Inevitability, 3. Reality, 4. Loneliness, 5. Alienation, 6. Existentialism, 7. Fundamental,
8. Metaphor, 9. Time, 10. Death, 11. Blooming, 13. Ageing, 15. Universality

Larkin has four published volumes of poem to his credit. The first, The North Ship (1946) contains five poems on the
theme of death and time, namely- 'All Catches Alight', (11), ' This was your place of Birth, This Day Time Palace', (13), 'Heaviest
of Flowers, the Head' (40), 'Pour away the Youth' (40), and 'This is the First Thing' (39). The words 'death', 'dead' and 'time' occur in
these poems either directly or their sense is conveyed in a simile and a metaphor. The second volume, The Less Deceived, (1955)
contains the poem 'Next Please' (20), in which the phrase 'black ship' signifies death. The Whitsun Weddings (1964) consists of as
many as seven poems which bring forth the theme of death and time. High Windows (1974), the last book contains six poems
on the theme of death and time.
Larkin is deeply involved with the theme of death and time. In some of his poems, he uses the words 'death', 'dead' and 'die'
denotatively but often deals imaginatively in the similes and metaphors. In this respect, Andrew Motions (1982) comments that
"Death was the subject Larkin wrote about continually and powerfully with imagination and as strong sense of its imminence and
inevitability" (88). True, Larkin writes about death powerfully with imagination. He expresses inevitability of death, but never speaks about
its danger or it as a misfortune as Motion mentions. Larkin a poet of reality tells about the greatest "reality of life, reminds people to keep
ready to face it, warns those, who knowing it do not want to accept and hold unrealistic illusion. People know their limits- that they
are subject to illness, the limitations of other deterministic forces and ultimately death yet they act as if they are immortal.
His treatment of death, loneliness, alienation shows existentialistic elements in his poems. Existentialism is concerned
with the study of the core of one's being. It centres directly on personal experiences and tries to avoid analyzing the lives of people
by means of logical systems that treat human beings as abstracted, impersonal objects. Likewise, Larkin too stresses upon his personal
experiences and writes to preserve them for himself and for others also. Existentialists believe we should focus first on our own
subjective experiences in the formulation of problems to be studied, and then proceed to study them in as objective a way as
possible. In existentialist philosophy "a person is the starting point. It poses fundamental questions about existence, meaning of
life..... (Richard M. Ryckman, 1978, 358) Death is given a high priority in existentialists formulations since it touches us all. There
are several poems in the collection The "Less Deceived" which deal with ways of contemplating death, destiny, contingency and
nothingness. Stephen Regan observes that "the poem 'Next Please' might well be read in terms of the existentialist dictum that
human life in its entirety is life facing death". Larkin may not have direct incentive from existentialistic views of life, being and death
but his rendering of death, loneliness etc. certainly show the presence of existentialistic trends and a few of Larkin's poems can be
analyzed from the existentialistic point of view.
Larkin in the opening poem, 'All Catches Alight' (11), in The North Ship, reveals that the flow of life cannot be checked,
it runs back to the "whole". In the first stanza of the poem he portrays the "spread of spring" and its effect on the nature:
All catches alight
At the spread of spring:
Birds crazed with flight
Branches that fling
Leaves up to the light.
(TNS,11)

Everything seems to cry out "Rejoice" under the pleasing spell of spring. Animate or inanimate gather up, bubbling up with life and hurl far out
beyond the dead- as if there is no end, no death. A "Wintry drum" taps, reminds, yet they do not pay attention to it. The phrase "Wintry drum" is suggestive of
the end, the death of spring. The sound of the drum is cold, the phrase foregrounds the contrast between the warmth of the spring and coldness of
winter, i.e., life and death respectively. Larkin describes this idea through a metaphor. He employs the vehicle "wheel" which suggests that time is an ever
moving element, the spring and the winter are its different phases, the spring is taken over by winter and the cycle goes on:
Let the wheel spin out
Till all created things

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With shout and answering shout
Cast off rememberings;
(Ibid)
The wheel of time revolves till springs are followed by the wintry drum. The cycle of life and death continues. It is notable that Larkin seems to give more
weightage to the "wintry drum" than the spread of spring, i.e. death to life. He accepts life to have come from some "whole", but does not mention what he
means by "All runs back to the whole", yet it is clear that he admits the cycle of life and death. Time is the agent who executes this cycle*

Larking maintains that death is there but human beings do not want to take notice of it, it stays just on the edge of vision like a small
unfocussed blur. There are several things which may never occur, but death will. The realization of this truth rages out in furnace-
fear, when somebody is caught without any help to save. There have been persons brave enough in the face of death yet could not
escape it. To cultivate the habit of expectancy is human. He is absorbed with his expectancies to the extent that he forgets the
approaching death. Larkin, in the poem 'Next Please' (TLD, 20) speaks on this basic aspect of human nature. He creates a metaphor
revealing how a person standing on a cliff looks and waits eagerly for a number of ship loaded with luring promises approaching
him. The ships do come but never anchor, pass by him, his expectations are doomed. This is the truth of life. Human being creates
the cliff of bluffs, stands on it and seeks for the glittering armada but never receives. On the contrary, one black ship seeks him and
grabs. The black ship is death, larkin tells :
.... a black –
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge birdless silence. In her wake
No water breed or break.
('Next, please', TLD 20)

Larkin's portrayal of the approaching death is altogether new. The poets, precursor or contemporary, have not dealt with this
aspect of death. Death approaches its victim silently, comes stealthingly, acts and passes away. Larkin invents the phrase
'A huge birdless silence'. The ship of death approaches in a mode that in her wake no waters breed or break. This is the perfect
description of the approaching death. The movement of a ship can never occur without breeding or breaking of waves in the
water. The special movement of the ship transforms the ship into the ship of death. The title of the poem 'Next, Please'
suggests that the people in the world are in a queue, waiting for their turn, death grabs them one by one. After having one,
It calls 'next, please'

Larking considers death as the 'slow dying process. Human beings cannot face downward or lie prostrate, they have to face
it. Frederic gubb tells in the context of Larkin's concept of death, '' nothing of the grovelling before death'' (1965, 229).
Throughout their activities human beings die every minute, the ways many be different, the end is the same. Even the hours
giving evidence of birth, advance slowly on death :
In mill – town on dark mornings
Life is slow dying
x x x x
Hours giving evidence
Or birth, advance
On death equally slowly.
('Nothing to be said' TWW. 11)

The irony is that men celebrate birthdays, while each birthday is an advance on death. Human beings try to remain ignorant
of the way things work. They speak, so I feel',' It does seem so'. or 'someone must know' and spend their whole life on
impressions :
Even to wear such knowledge – for our flesh
Surrounds us with its own decisions-
And yet spend all our life on impressions,
That when we start to die
Have no idea why.
(Ignorance, TWW 39)
It is believed that time, place and mode of death is pre- determined and nothing can escape it. In the poem 'The Building'
(HW 25) Larking writes.
...All know they are going to die.
Not yet, perhaps not here, but in the end,
And somewhere like this.
(HW 25)
Larkin's expressions of death and time are outflows of his pessimistic attitude which concedes that death is the ultimate
reality and time the great force. He is a poet who writes about the realities of life boldly, in a mode, effective and differ ent
from his contemporaries (Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn). Larkin considers human beings to be living toys in the hands of time,
they soon wear off:
Living toys are something novel,
But it soon wears off somehow.
('Nothing to be said' TWW, 26)
Time, a universal element, displays itself in the three phases in a human body,- childhood, youth and old age. Larkin has not
written about childhood. He speaks on youth and old age. Youth is the period of expectancies, hopes and dreams, while the old
age recounts the achievements and losses of the past youth. Larkin has described youth in some very suggestive phrases that reflect
the characteristics of the blooming period of human beings, e.g., "jewel in the head", "bronze in the breath". The former expresses
the glaring beauty that body receives at the approach of the youth, the later indicates the warmth of youth. Larkin describes the
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youth as full of energy, the unfailing sense of being young spreads out in the body like a spring - woken tree and the hidden freshness
sings out of each pore of the body. He says :
And the unfailing sense of being young
Spread out like a spring- woken tree wherein
That hidden freshness sung.
(TWW)

Inspite of the live presentation of youth, Larkin switches on the another extreme. He, in a commanding tone speaks:

Throw away that youth

That jewel in the head
That bronze in the breath
and
Walk with the dead
For fear of death

Larkin's poetry on death and time can be seen to fall into three distinct phases. The earlier poems philosophise ironically
over the sense of the lost opportunities, which comes with age, In the second phase of 1960s philosophical composure cracks
and he begins to express a raw jealousy of the young. In the third, he ob serves the prospect of the physical and mental
sterlity. Old age is the third aspect of time in a man's life. Larkin, in the poem. The old Fools' (HW, 19) recounts old age's mentality
as well as physicality. The growing age alters the thinking of a person. He does not want to accept changes, time has brought about. His
memory recedes, but he feels annoyed in accepting it (the old age). He thinks that with the advancement of age, he is gaining wisdon.

To make them like this ?

Do they some how suppose
It's more grownup when
your mouth hangs open and drools.

Although because of the old age memory of the people weakens and he fails even to recall who called upon him in the morning. He
recounts the events of his youth :
They could alter thing back to
When they danced all night.
Or went to their wedding,
or Sloped arms some September.
(HW, 19)

The old people go to the extent of fancying, not recognizing the changes, "do they fancy there's really been no change?" This state
of mind is the first symptom of old age. Grown up people do not concede that the power of choosing has been snatched away from
them :

We had it before, But then it was going to end'.

The physical appearance of old age has been portrayed in the phrases: "Ash hair", "Toad hands", "prune face dried into lines".
Old people, though witness the effect of age on their body, yet ignore, refuse its presence. The senility that accompanies old
age has been well expressed (although an ugly picture) in this poem. Larkin :

...... Their looks show that they're for it :

Ash hair, toad hands prune face dried into lines.
And you keep on pissing yourself
(Ibid)

In the context of Larkin's notion of the "time element" and its effect on the body i.e. ageing, Brownjohn says : "Larkin's po ems
concerning age are more original than those concerning death. No other major poet has devoted so much imaginative energy to
the humiliations of ageing, to jealousy of the young and horror at approaching senility" (1975, 148). No doubt, the tone of the
poem is harsh and scornful, but it is not for ageing, is for the old people who do not accept their decline and continue living
in the fool's paradise. Larkin, for whom old age is the unavoidable display of time element, could never ridicule it. He reminds,
rather warns not to enact youth. The old people should accept the reality of time and behave accordingly, since the next step of
the time awaits them. The harshness of the tone is not meant to ridicule, it is because he feels sorry for their senility, he feels
sad for them who do not want to accept the reality of time. His speakers meet full face on a dark morning, the sight of their
own ageing face in the mirror prompts them no longer to polite apologies. They accept the loss of youth and the way they
have wasted it. The poem 'Send No Money' evidences this attitude :

Larkin's vision of the past, present and future is characteristically unique. He maintains the presence of the past and the future in the
present. The past is in the form of remembrance and the future as expectancies. People lament for the slipped opportunities of
which they could not, or did not make use of and await the fortune to shower everything good upon them. The poem ''Triple
Time'' conveys this idea metaphorically :

The past
A valley cropped by fat neglected change
that we insensately forebore to fleece.
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(TLD, 35)

Andrew Motion and Blake Morrison have pointed out the exclusiveness of the Triple Time :
The present in which his persona lives and speaks is continually embarassed or thwarted by the past- which is brimming with missed
opportunities and is also mocked or intimidated by the future – which for all its promises is overshadowed by the memory of past
disappointments.
Larkin accepts the universality of the time effect. The poem 'An Arundel Tomb' presents this effect resonantly. The poem expresses
Larkin's notion that time spares nothing. It transfigures the so called truth into untruth. The love of the Earl and the countess was a
truth. The earl lies holding her hand in the tomb, even after death, but;
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon.
('An Arundel Tomb', TWW, 46)
Larkin shows that man – created immortality proves futile against time.

Thus, it is evident that Larkin's attitude to death and time, in his poems, is different from his precursors, as well as from his contemporaries.
For him youth's vigour is momentary, its dreams are illusory. Human beings should realize the growing age and keep ready to
welcome death. Time is an element and appears in happenings. For time, the human beings are living toys. The reality of death and
time is not to be ignored. In the contemporary English poetry, Larkin is the only poet, who has devoted so much of imagination
and poetic sensibility on this theme. His attitude has developed from his experience. Neelima Mehta in The Indian Journal of
English Studies remarks, 'Time and Death are the grand themes that Larkin's poetry deals with. These established him in the front rank
of modern British poets' (volume xxxviii, 1999-2000, 65).

Reference :
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2. Furst, L.R. Romanticism in Perspective, Macmillan New York, 1969
3. Gleckner & Enscoae.ed. Romanticism : Point of View, Prentice Hall, Inc. USA, 1962
4. Foakes, R.A. The Romantic Assertion : A Study in the Language of nineteenth Century Poetry, London, Methuen & Co. ltd. 1958
5. Kermode, Frank, Romantic Image, New York, Macmillan, 1957
6. Lucas, F.L. The Decline and fall of the Romantic Ideal, New York, Macmillan 1937
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8. Thorlby, Anthony ed. The Romantic Movement, Longmans, 1966.
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Prentice Hall, USA 1962. 198
10. ..... 'Romanticism Re- examined' in Romanticism Reconsidered, ed. Northrop Frye : Columbia Press, 1963, 108

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