[ SECRET POST #5214 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5214 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________


03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.












Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 08 secrets from Secret Submission Post #746.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Which poets do you like and/or dislike?

[(Anonymous)]

I hate Philip Larkin and I won't stop hating him until I'm deep in the cold ground. Disingenuous arrogant little shit and the fact that he had an incredibly fine technical command of meter and language only makes it worse.

Re: Which poets do you like and/or dislike?

[(Anonymous)]

May I have some examples of his arrogance? You've made me curious.

Re: Which poets do you like and/or dislike?

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, so I think it is, to a certain extent, a combination of things.

One big part of it is that Larkin has this poetic persona of 'poor little old loser me' that he relies on for the reader's sympathy. And I think, in a sense, I find that persona in his work arrogant itself - it can be very self-pitying. It reminds me of Orson Welles' take on Woody Allen - that the most timid people can sometimes be the most arrogant. An example of this might be "Love Again" - "Isolate rather this element / That spreads through other lives like a tree / And sways them on in a sort of sense / And say why it never worked for me."

And then that combines with two other major themes in Larkin's work - first of all, an incredibly deep cynical streak about the possibilities of human existence; and second, a frequent use of a certain optimistic "turn", often at the end of his poems, that points towards a more humanistic, positive assessment of human existence without fully commiting to it. You can see the cynicism in a poem like Vers de Societe. And you can see the optimistic turn most iconically, maybe, in An Arundel Tomb - "Our almost instinct almost true / what will survive of us is love" - it's a beautiful sentiment but it's one that Larkin consciously holds back from fully endorsing.

And so when you combine those things, you get a poetic oeuvre that I just find incredibly ugly - a combination of total self-regard for one's own loneliness and failings, total cynical contempt for other peoples' attempts to find love, but also an unwillingness to come right out and say this, and instead, an attempt to play for the sympathy of readers and present yourself as The Good Guy. You get poems like He Hears That His Beloved Has Become Engaged - "But no. What you did, any of us might. / And saying so I see our difference: / Not your aplomb (I used mine to sit tight), / But fancying you improve her. Where's the sense / In saying love, but meaning indifference? / You'll only change her. Still, I'm sure you're right." A poem that I just find totally arrogant, self-justifying, but also cowardly. Admittedly, with a certain amount of ironic self-knowledge - but for me, that doesn't improve the situation at all. Larkin wants to be this clear-eyed gloomy observer of human failings but that's really just a cynical, manipulative pose.

Re: Which poets do you like and/or dislike?

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, thanks! Great explanation! I can see your points and they're valid, IMO.