Thursday 12 June 2014
Talking in Bed - Philip Larkin
Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
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This poem has a very sad and lost tone, the poet has lost the love for their partner and finds it difficult to communicate, and perhaps says things that are 'unkind' just to fill the silence.
ReplyDeletePatheticfallace is used in stanzas 2 and 3 to show that is going on in his head and the emotions he is feeling, in comparison to the still, silent awkwardness that he is feeling when laying next to his partner.
Larkin's poem has a regular structure to resemble the stagnant relationship with his partner.
Larkin looks at love with a less common view and seems to take a very sombre interpretation. He presents an image of a couple who are suffering a breakdown of communication and gives the reader the impression that the love that the couple felt for each other cannot be retrieved. Larkin maybe trying to covey that they both feel not only isolated from the world around them but also secluded in their own bed. Larkin uses imagery when talking about 'dark towns heap up on the horizon'. By using this negative natural imagery he is able to convey the idea that the couple are not feeling a sense of fulfilment.
ReplyDeleteLarkin presents a dismal image to the reader, he shows us of a broken marriage. Where the couple feel so alone and isolated that they find it challenging to engage in conversation 'talking in bed ought to be easiest'. Not only this but they also feel isolated from the world outside of the window. The structure of this poem is in four stanza's with an iambic pentameter. Larkin shows language features in his poem, imagery is used with the 'dark towns heap up on the horizon' also a metaphor as all around them new buldings are being built. In contrast with the fact that they can't seem to rebuild their relationship.
ReplyDeleteLarkin portrays his relationship as isolated, with a lack of confidence. However, this can be seen as a positive as the couple could have a close intimate relationship, by which they do not discuss this in public as they feel that nobody else needs to know. But this could also suggest that the couple may have issues in communicating, this could be ambiguous as 'lying together goes back for' which could suggest that the couple could be 'telling lies over a long period of time' being displayed through the 12 lines of iambic pentameter. - Lily.
ReplyDeleteThis poem has a serious tone , as it has an Iambic pentameter with an irregular rhythm . The poem I think generally summed up is talking about an argument which has happened and created this tense atmosphere , and also since the couple have known each other for hours they have lost topic of what to say , and struggle to find new subjects to talk about. The repetition of 'silence' and nothing happening , shows the isolation and how alone they feel even though they are next to eachother in bed , Larkin basically saying I can be honest , and we are great but I can not talk , I don't know what to talk about.
ReplyDeletePhilip Larkin's poem, Talking in Bed, is his way of communicating with his lover that he feels no longer intimate with them, as their relationship has changed over time. He shows that he feels that he does not feel comfortable with the direction the relationship is going, when he uses the lexical choices 'unrest', and 'emblem' as it represents two people being honest, but really they aren’t as they are silent.
ReplyDeleteLarkin uses a regular rhyme scheme, but only uses half rhymes. This symbolises that although Larkin keeps up appearances, his heart is not really in the relationship –he lacks the passion he may have once had for his lover. The use of a regular structure of three lines per stanza means that their relationship is stagnant, with no change over a long period of time, possibly a year – each stanza representing a season, and each line representing a month.
Larkin uses two main lexical fields one based on nature and the outdoors; ‘wind’s’, ‘clouds’, ‘sky’ and ‘horizon’. The other main lexical field is based on isolation or emptiness; ‘incomplete’, ‘disperses’, ‘None’, Nothing’, ‘distance’ and ‘isolation’. The first lexical field represents how their relationship used to be simple – whereas the second represents how they now feel, with separate interests and views, giving them nothing to talk about.
Larkin uses a mixture of past and present tense, as he describes how their relationship used to be positive, but is diminishing, along with their feelings for one another. The use of personification ‘dark towns heap up on the horizon.’ shows the way that the poet is finding company through others, even inanimate objects instead of the comfort he used to find in his lover.
The poet uses sibilance ‘passes silently’, the repeated ‘s’ sound is soothing, as though he is trying to tell his lover not to worry. This may be because Larkin has adopted a cynical view on love, and has realised that this happens in many relationships.
Larkin portrays the couple in the poem to have lost their love through time. Larkin also describes a couple talking in bed as "an emblem of two people being honest". The word "emblem" allows for us to think that the time that a couple spends in bed talking to each other is a symbol of honesty.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the poem, Larkin talks about time, and the issues entangled with it. For example, he writes "Lying there goes back so far". This shows that the couple had been together for a while. Also, "time passes silently" and "heap up on the horizon" have links to time (the word 'horizon' has connotations with the future).
The couple in this poem are unable to say any words at all to each other, let alone those that are "true and kind". This is shown in the last stanza of the poem, of which I consider to be rather ambiguous; either the couple had previously had an argument, or, they had grown bored and distant over the years, of which links to the recurring theme of time. There is a lexical field, of which relates to distance. Words within this field are "disperses", "distance" and "isolation". These all link to the fact that the couple are distant, and are potentially so because they are bored, or had had an argument.
Although we are not told if the speaker is male or female, or whether their partner is male or female, we feel sympathy for the couple - in their long journey in trying to stay happy, trying to keep each other happy, and failing to complete simple tasks as a couple such as being able to talk appropriately and truthfully to each other.