Death of a Naturalist and To Autumn.
Intensely realised representation of nature. Sensory imagery and overwhelming evocation of Nature’s power. Both explore the relationship between a human observer and the lively activity of the natural world. The child observer in Heaney delays his own entrance as his childhood is immersed in his recollections that reveal the ritualistic aspect of his visits to the flax-dam. The Keats poem is an adult observer, delighting in the natural world too, yet able to play with perspective from stanza to stanza suggesting an acceptance that is unavailable to Heaney’s suddenly alarmed child.
Transience is explored in both with very different effects: repulsion in Heaney and acceptance in Keats. biography is thus a fascinating contrast. Writing as catharsis? Writing involves the sacrifice of the self or aspects of the self. The child becomes a poet. Keats moves towards his real demise.
Look at the delay in the announcement of the child poet. This is in keen contrast to the Hawk Roosting poem And the extract from the Prelude where there is clearly a more pronounced sense of self-established at the beginning of each poem. Even if nature is immersive, it does not threaten to engulf the observer as in Heaney’s recollection.
Heaney’s death is metaphorical, Keats’ death is literal and we suspect personal too. Acknowledgement in both poems leads to horror and resistance in Heaney, whilst transcendence in Keats.
Hawk Roosting.
Nature is a playground, given presence through vivid imagery to underline its submission to the Hawk’s appetites. The powerful, seemingly invincible eye/I of the Hawk contrasts with the vulnerability of Heaney’s narrator whose evolving maturity seems a crushing responsibility. The fixed perception of the Hawk contrast with the changing perception of the child. In both the sensory details animate nature, but with very different effects. The complacency of the hawk could be ironically destabilised by the fact that the Hwk is a human hawk, gifted a language that reinforces the human poet’s need for domination.
Afternoons.
Strong sense of change or transformation bringing about considerable disappointment. Nature has is cyclical and Larking shows how we are related by others, creating a sense of unresolved loss that is understated and remains inarticulate in Larkin. Try writing the first line and experience that sense of flatness and subtle grief. Nature is subsumed by the human hijacking of natural spaces like the bleak recreation ground. If Heaney’s poem can express the disappointment through the representation of repulsion, then Larkin’s mothers remain marginalised even from their own language. They are outside of themselves which seems more tragic than Heaney?
Prelude.
Childhood joy is expressed physically through the recollection of the skating incident. Like Heaney, there is a palpable sense of enthusiasm in the evocation of a special time through sensory imagery. Nature and the human are not enemies and the intense physical pleasure of Wordsworth’s young self is largely uncomplicated by experience, except the hint of mortality or the march of time at the close of the poem. The poem concentrates on giving lively, sensory presence to a sustaining recollection of childhood. The Heaney actually does this the other way around!
Valentine.
Cynical, practical, realistic assumptions about the progress of romantic relationships. Love is not eternal: disloyalty and even violence may occur. Bathetic choice of poetic conceit. The banality of the onion is designed to reduce expectations. The poem plays on the ostensible attempt at conversation which gives a thwarted structure to the poem.
Compare to Sonnet 43 which is ecstatic and transcendent. Love is celebrated through hyperbole and suggesting is that this love is more transcendent than religion which has disappointed the speaker. Sonnet form contracts to the ‘mess’ of Valentine which mirrors love’s chaos and broken effects on the heart. Love is an extension of the spiritual. Valentine explores the ironies of love, defying the economically, delusionary cliches of love where it is commercialized and commodified.
Apologia.
Love suffuses every aspect of daily life. Unashamedly besotted in a joyful and respectful manner. Even the approach of a Hurricane cannot destabilise the pleasure of their intimacy. A celebratory poem that explores the everyday aspects of daily love with humour and gratitude. Confidence in the delivery and organisation of the form shows the stability of their love.
Manhunt.
Loyalty is shown through the fixed nurturing presence of the wife. War has wrought havoc on her lover, but her enduring love is there is rebuild their marriage. The broken lover is ruined by war, not by the cynicism of Valentine. Compassion and keen worship of the body retranslate horror into love. The irony is respectful rather than negative.
Wife in London.
Again, loyalty is palpably present. The pathetic fallacy shows the isolation and loneliness of her love, not wrought by cynicism though. The irony section reveals her husband’s enduring love which although tragically celebrated after the announcement of his death, still gives the widow something enduring to hold onto to, unlike the half-hearted marriage proposal in Valentine. Mortality is unavoidable, yet love transcends.
Afternoons.
Love is a trap for women in particular. Monotonous. They are supplanted and replaced. This leads to loss of freedom and the lies of the wedding album are set against the feelings of marginalisation and loss. Women know they are lacking autonomy but are unable to articulate exactly why as the society and culture of the late 50s confines them to home and child-rearing whilst the men escape.
London
Explores a blighted urban place. The Industrial Revolution has consigned many to a living hell: the squalor, degradation and hopelessness are given vivid representation by the wandering social critic and poet. Even the Thames itself is enslaved to commercialism. Blake is angry about the exploitation of the poor. the suffering is universal and all those in power are without compassion for those they use to further their own concerns. Even the Church itself is degenerate.
The regular rhyme scheme and claustrophobic organisation of the four stanzas give an overwhelming sense of suffocation. Whichever stanza or room the reader encounters there exists yet another portrayal of deprivation. There is no sanctuary for those victims of the Industrial Revolution. The French Revolution Blake believes, may be repeated in England because of the huge abyss between the rich and the poor.
The suffering is universal. All innocence is destroyed or exploited. Sexuality is a commodity to be traded. The disease is rife and this disease is prevalent in this unsanctified place.
Living Space.
Another portrayal of urban deprivation and extreme poverty The precariousness of existence is conveyed by the shape of the poem which looks skeletal and fragile, mirroring the fragile structures of the Mumbai slums. Yet the images are full of light despite the threat of mortality. Transience seems to inspire community and even tentative defiance and hope. Hope and faith come together in the enduringly beautiful image of the ‘egg’. Yes, eggs can be broken but they also lead to new life, to rebirths. This is in stark contrast to the unrelenting darkness of London where birth leads to general disease and death.
Afternoons.
The late 1950s give little choice beyond the home to women, despite their hopes for change after the Second World war. The disappointment of the young mothers is palpable. Marriage has deprived them of any youthful liberty and they are guardians of the family whilst their husbands have the freedom to pursue their skills in work. Monotony is represented through the regular visits to the ironically named recreation ground. Social lives are limited. Summer had definitely faded! The lies of Romantic love are central to this poem’s message which is sympathetic to women despite the recognition of a misogynistic society of which the male poet is no doubt a part. . The album lies next to the tv. Love has become banal. Love misleads women into a form of imprisonment. Women are expendable. The final irony shows that their inability to directly recognise their own entrapment is part of the problem. They are marginalised within their own lives and even language.
