"The True Adventurer"

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. - Eleanor Rosevelt

Monday, September 30, 2013

Philip Larkin


After reading both “This Be the Verse” and “Church Going,” it is hard not to wonder about Larkin’s true motives for writing such poetry.  Both poems speak of political and personal situations that some would or wouldn’t agree with.  As the reader, I do not agree with either main points Larkin is trying to make since he contradicts himself in both poems.  First in “Church Going,” the narrator realizes that as humans we need something to believe in so our questions can be answered; even though, he is obviously against organized religion.  Secondly, in “This Be the Verse,” Larkin tries to connect horrible parents to excuses of also having bad parents.  This train of thought leads to a slippery slope of, “because I had horrible parents, I am going to be a horrible parent, and because I am so will you.”  These ideas are what create monsters, people who only believe they are what they come from lose sight of anything good.  Larkin’s poetry feels like his way of working through ridiculous ideas that have plagued him for a very long time. 

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