Summer is fading:
The leaves fall in ones and twos
From trees bordering
The new recreation ground.
In the hollows of afternoons
Young mothers assemble
At swing and sandpit
Setting free their children.
Behind them, at intervals,
Stand husbands in skilled trades,
An estateful of washing,
And the albums, lettered
Our Wedding, lying
Near the television:
Before them, the wind
Is ruining their courting-places
That are still courting-places
(But the lovers are all in school),
And their children, so intent on
Finding more unripe acorns,
Expect to be taken home.
Their beauty has thickened.
Something is pushing them
To the side of their own lives
Larkin’s poem Afternoons is featured in the Eduqas Anthology for GCSE students. I shall consider the poem’s message through a close examination of the language and tone. I will analysis each stanza separately and dedicate a blog to each of the three stanzas.
Let’s reread the opening line and listen to its effect: ‘Summer is fading: ‘ declares the poet. Think about the connotations of this remark. Does it sound resigned, acceptant or definitive, even authoritative?
‘Summer’ is certainly losing the seasonal battle and is yielding to Autumn. The passage of time is inevitable and progress is undercut by change. We sense the weariness of the speaker as the special power (and light) of ‘summer’ is ‘fading’. Surely the effect is one of loss? We might feel bereaved in a way? Disappointed certainly by what ‘summer’ promised and then takes away. Is ‘summer’ a metaphor for a certain stage of life where hope and freedom dominate? Where our sense of responsibility is small rather than weighty?
The progression of time is inevitable and this inevitability defines us. Mortality gives meaning to our lives. The softly spoken utterance that opens the poem prepares the reader for the poem’s exploration of transience and disappointment. Both are fascinating themes for Larkin whose poetry rarely entertains jollity or enthusiasm. I admire the way the opening line invites us into a state of mind as well as context. The subtle use of the full colon makes us ponder and accept the power of the declaration.
The fact that ‘summer is fading’ rather than ending suggests the subtlety of change or perhaps its insidious progression. Time cannot be controlled yet think of young students at the beginning of the long summer break. Don’t they suspect that summer might be never-ending? Then September appears and routine and ritual return. Is anything so cynically dispiriting as supermarket posters reminding children and parents of the approaching ‘Back to School’?
So think about: ephemerality/transience/inevitability/mortality/seasonal metaphor/disappointment of adulthood/sustained metaphor/cyclical nature of life/diminishment of hope/life fails to live up to our aspirations/human fragility or unimportance against the natural progression of time etc