Critical Analysis of Here by Philip Larkin

Here is a sprawling, mournful and often majestic poetry that takes the contributor on a strikingly visual journey through the countryside and the township, before finally closing curtain up on the coast. Larkin uses long, flowing sentences which extend a sense of continual fecal matter these sentences are full of rich imagery and verbal description which fully take up the reader in the poem. The poem is titled Here, yet in the first three stanzas the poem takes in various positionings and never stands be quiet the reader questions where Here is, whether or not it is actually a specific, somatogenetic location.In Here, Larkin appears to be critical of the urban population, finding to a greater extent(prenominal) beauty and appeal in the natural world than the human race world, demo by the fact that human presence in the poem is notwithstanding temporary, fading away after the third stanza. The first word of the poem, slue, lends an immediate sense of physical movemen t to the poem. However, it is not the traditional, vehicular elucidate of movement trains and cars do not swerve. The movement in Here is presently free and unrestrained, as the rich industrial shadows are left behind.This independence of movement however, immediately contrasts with the traffic all night north, which momently parts the poem in its tracks, made clear by the by-line semi-colon which breaks up the line. However, the poem immediately starts up over again, with the repetition of the word turn which reinforces the sense of free movement. Now, Larkin takes us through the fields/too hazard and thistled to be called meadows, before the poem is again interrupted by the set of the human world- the poem halts for the Workmen at dawn. Larkin then repeats Swerving for a third time.On three different occasions the word is apply each time to the same effect. By the end of the first stanza the reader end be in no doubt that Larkin is taking them on a journey. In the firs t stanza, and indeed in the whole poem, thither is a clear theme of the industrialized world interrupting the natural, unsophisticated world. Larkin presents a series of images skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hare and pheasants along with the meadows and widening river. These images are marred around by the traffic and workmen, and ultimately the town which emerges in the second stanza. These nterruptions are summed up by Larkin as harsh-named halts.The contrast amidst country and city, between rural and urban, is another key theme in the poem. The freedom of trend through the countryside in the first stanza is replaced by the claustrophobic cluster of domes and statues, spires and cranes which foregather the large town. Even the water, which in the first stanza takes the form of a nonviolent river, is barge-crowded in the second stanza, again demonstrating the often negative influence of man. To add to the contrast, Larkin numbers elements of the town (domes and statues in exactly the same manner as he lists elements of the countryside (skies and scarecrows ).Here, the piled gold clouds have been replaced with the little appealing grain-scattered streets. Notably, the town is the first amour in the poem that is set forth as Here, perhaps hinting at the location of the poems title. Another contrast between the rural and urban settings of the poem is the differing types of movement. In the first stanza, the poem moves freely, swerving. In the second stanza, everything is more rigid the journey of the city-dwellers from the raw estates is described as dead straight.At this stage, Larkin is clearly critical not besides of the urban population, but of their consumerist culture. They are described negatively as a cut-price crowd scarcely interested in their superficial desires. Larkin presents us with another selection of images this time of unneeded consumer goods. Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers-. The hyphen at the end of this list indicat es the extreme quantity of these goods, something which Larkin quietly despises. The first stanza contains clear elements of hope it is dawn, the journey is taking us away from the negatively described industrial shadows.Also, the stanza ends on a positive note the piled gold clouds and gleaming gull-marked mud are beautiful descriptions of natural scenes untouched by human influence. However, the second stanza retains none of this positivity the reader is trapped behind the plate-glass embroil doors of consumerism. Through start the poem Larkins descriptions tend to rely less on descriptive adjectives, which appear infrequently, and more on series of images relating to the place universe described.When descriptive adjectives are used, they are used to brilliant effect the luminously- batchd nimbus and the piled- gold louds, but the lists of different images are more frequent and lend more of an impression. In the third stanza, Larkin presents an almost entirely negative list of images that he associates with the town in fact, each list is almost a spontaneous word-association game for Larkin. When Larkin looks at the town as a whole, the description is not too unfavourable, mainly focusing on the buildings, however when he goes further down and looks at the town on a more personal level, the description is rather more cutting. The fishy-smelling town is full of tattoo-shops and consulates, and is only visited by salesmen and relations.With the latter point, Larkin may well be pointing out that living in a city, surrounded by houses and shops and people doesnt guarantee fulfilment and fitting in you can still be isolated whilst living in a town. Another point is that the edges of the town are described as half-built edges- the building is still in reach and the town is clearly expanding, possibly indefinitely. Larkin touches on the idea of loneliness again between the third and fourth stanzas. Here he describes how out in the countryside, beyond the rea lm of the city, the wheat-fields Isolate villages, where removed lives/Loneliness clarifies. This full stop is the first in the poem the three stanza sentence ends here, out in the isolated countryside. However, it is clear that the loneliness experienced in the isolated villages is not the same as that experienced in the towns. In the countryside, Larkin suggests that the loneliness and the isolation clarifies your life perhaps he means that, free from the consumerist desires and tattoo-shops life is less cluttered and busy, and somewhat perversely, less lonely, in spite of the physical isolation.The ending of the first sentence suggests that the poems journey is over, that we have finally arrived at Larkins location, Here. Here, there are no people human influence is entirely absent from the final stanza. Instead, Larkin presents an image of enthusiastic natural beauty, where Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken/Luminously-peopled blood ascends. Its an interesting ide a that beauty is present where we arent looking, that it can be right in front of us and still go unnoticed.The poem comes to a rather sudden halt when the land on the spur of the moment ends at the beach of shapes and shingle. Larkin then states Here is unfenced earth. It is possible that he is referring to the beach, the coast and the sea, that freedom can only genuinely be found there, but by this point in the poem it appears more likely that Here is less a physical location and more a state of mind. Once you arrive at the entire mental state (Here), unfenced existence is finally possible.