tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post7282286298305791362..comments2024-03-25T15:07:41.959+00:00Comments on Nigeness: Larkin Again: Two Ways of Looking at a ToadNigehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-89631601553966795692018-01-16T04:09:12.777+00:002018-01-16T04:09:12.777+00:00Seems I'll have to write an urban Northern cou...Seems I'll have to write an urban Northern counterpoint to my comments on Housman:<br /><br />FOR A.E. HOUSMAN (1859 – 1936)<br /><br />Deliberately he chose the done and dusted<br />Living in sepia tones with quiet reflection<br />To dream of country lads, courage and regret:<br />Recruiting them to war or worse intention<br />To death on distant battlegrounds or gibbet<br />Claiming loyalty or faithless lovers sent them.<br /><br />Fearing the hard caress, the felled swathes,<br />Sleep faux farmer’s boy - what point to rise?<br />No harvest comes to wintry empty bays<br />The farm’s deserted, nothing to rear or prize<br />But stack-yard groundsel, chaff and shiftless days,<br />Beneath the earth the quick-limed dry-stock lies:<br /><br />For those who never love and then repent<br />Sheave postcards from the land of lost content.<br />Keith Shorrocks Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14699580856484738833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-75980439704703077022018-01-16T04:04:52.199+00:002018-01-16T04:04:52.199+00:00Every time I read Larkin, I feel the need to nervo...Every time I read Larkin, I feel the need to nervously search the seams of the pockets of my trousers for a florin, sensing the imminent puff and sickening greying of the spent gas fire. Keith Shorrocks Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14699580856484738833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-23031674529566631362016-03-18T11:22:21.148+00:002016-03-18T11:22:21.148+00:00Well yes, there's little (if any) straight ...Well yes, there's little (if any) straight 'self-expression' in Larkin - as in any really first-rate poet. He's a maker, and one of the things he makes is a persona or series of personas that project an often comical gloom. Along with Beckett, he's a great (and misunderstood) black humorist, another Stoic comedian. His poems actually tend to be much sadder when he drops the persona. Nigehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13314891387515045404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-50154856731491920742016-03-17T13:35:41.421+00:002016-03-17T13:35:41.421+00:00Lovers of Larkin often feel the need to defend the...Lovers of Larkin often feel the need to defend the man from charges of being a marketeer of misery such as in Seamus Heaney's lecture "Joy or Night" which quotes 'Aubade' published in Heaney's "The Redress of Poetry". Patrick Kurp does the defending of Larkin regularly on Anecdotal Evidence. So, I'm interested, Nige, by your comment "Toads and its sister poem are drenched in Larkinian irony and humour, and should not be read as any kind of 'statement' (statement, that is, of anything beyond the poem)." This suggests an ironic detachment. It would, of course, be naive to think that no such detachment exists in art or that a poem, so skilfully, not to say beautifully crafted as 'Aubade' was not recollected and crafted in tranquillity. It suggests that Larkin was, even in his most miserable and hopeless content, playing roles. In order to do that one has to have an essential artistic serenity. What do you think? PS Agree with you on the easy joys of retirement.Guy Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02304053177188950094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-48610824846624033012016-03-17T10:53:21.224+00:002016-03-17T10:53:21.224+00:00Gosh, they're jolly good. Why had I forgotten ...Gosh, they're jolly good. Why had I forgotten about them these last thirty years?Recusanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11446741817585462393noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2526736757651414061.post-91621233291358709432016-03-17T00:24:00.651+00:002016-03-17T00:24:00.651+00:00Years ago, when a friend spoke of perhaps retiring...Years ago, when a friend spoke of perhaps retiring, I mentioned the poems. She apparently had not heard of Larkin, but liked them very much.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.com