Analysis of the poem 'Here' from Philip Larkin's collection of poems, 'The Whitsun Weddings.' For the poetry section of the Pearson specification of A-Level Language and Literature.
Here
(deixis – words which point to the physical context you are in, e.g., now)
Journey
Swerving (verb) – out of control, indecisive, avoid something.
Urban landscape to a rural one
Driving east
Early in the morning
Abrupt setting shift
Asyndetic phrasing represents busy city.
‘’raw’ (adj) new
List of appliances, consumerism
Hull ‘fishy smelling’ ‘ships up the streets’.
S1
Approaching city from south (swerving east) towards hull and ‘all night north’
from south – London
Through empty countryside through farmland beside the wide river Humber
S2
Arrives in hull ‘the surprise of a large town’ where its diverse buildings are
described.
Begins w traditions (domes, statues) moves to modernity (housing estates and
shops)
S3
‘fishy smelling pastoral’ ‘slave museum’ ’tattoo shops’
Journey continues through new build estates (mortgage) into countryside
again, presumably further eastwards.
, Passes through ‘isolate villages.
S4
Strange landscape untouched by human work things are ‘unnoticed’ ‘hidden’
‘neglected’.
Reached end of land happens ‘suddenly’ echoing/contrasting with the
‘surprise’ of arriving in hull (s2)
Final encounter here with something almost spiritual and in contrast with the
materialism of the city 9s2-3) ‘here is unfenced existence/facing the sun
untalkative, out of reach’.
Look at:
Lexis and semantics
Grammar
Imagery
Phonological features
Rhetorical devices
Verse form
S2
Arrives in hull ‘the surprise of a large town’ where its diverse buildings are
described.
Begins w traditions (domes, statues) moves to modernity (housing estates and
shops)
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