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Word Count: 1054 Hamish Thomson HD05 In what ways is the passage of time present as a theme in Larkins poetry? Refer to at least 3 poems. We are not suited to the long perspectives... They link us to our losses Larkin sees time as a way for humans to conjure pessimistic nostalgia from what has gone from our lives. An aspect of time and its passing is shown in each of the poems A Study Of Reading Habits, High Windows, Reference Back, Sunny Prestatyn and Wild Oats of him reminiscing bitterly. Back when Larkin could deal out the old right hook to dirty dogs twice [his] size; his life was curable by reading. Any problems short of school could be solved this way. His self descriptions are all less than flattering he was a nerd with his nose in a book all the time in A Study Of Reading Habits. Immediately this poses Larkin as a young man with little self esteem, and backed up by his description of the unsatisfactory prime he had as a child in Reference Back. The depressive scene of him wasting [his] time at home playing record after record proves even further that he had a bad time in his youth. The only positivity in the poem comes where he describes the past where antique Negroes made music from a huge remembering pre-electric horn. Larkins youth is haunted by escaping from reality, be it looking to the past or being evil with a cloak and fangs in his fantasy world. Unfortunately his life doesnt pick up, as he gets ever nerdier; inch-thick specs on his face. While he makes it sound exciting, his ripping times in the dark were only himself reading his books late at night. The ambiguous noun dark is the clue that he escapes at night to a private fantasy world. Wild Oats introduces women into Larkins life, giving him an awkward situation where he could talk to only the less pretty of two women. Having shown himself to be a self proclaimed geek, this phase of his life becomes something he comes to regret. At the end of his poems, the thing Larkin does is to reflect on how his life has been less than average, and to spread that disguised as advice for the next person. A Study Of Reading Habits shows his life going down in a spiral of depression he ends up being the dude who lets the girl down before the hero arrives. Books are a load of crap is the ironic statement the poet makes as a reflection. Being too selfish, withdrawn and easily bored leads Larkin to having two unlucky charms of the girl he never approached to talk, and no mention of reminders of his girlfriend of seven years. Reference Back is his thoughts of thinking about time, and how we could have had a blindingly undiminished life by acting differently. This is his bitter sign that he would have done things another way if he were given the chance; he finds his life to be very unsatisfactory. Society. It advances as time passes. However that doesnt mean each individual will keep up with the whole. Reference Back mentions how further back in time, a mere huge remembering pre-electric horn was considered the peak of technology. Yet the people were happy, they were positive; that is the message that Larkin conveys as he imagines the flock of notes that Olivers Riverside Blues produced. The present has progressed far from that stage, and they had records on which to play music. And Larkin feels miserable, even though he plays record after record, idly. Progress is a flawed idea as it does not take into account the social wellbeing. The girl astride a tuberous cock and balls in Sunny Prestatyn is cognisant to that. While the poster advertises a pristine hunk of coast and a sexy babe in tautened white satin at Prestatyn, the social class knows that it will never be

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like that in reality. Over time, society degrades and violence is the primitive factor that most resort to; this is proven by the vulgar terms snaggle-toothed and slapped up that describe the defecation to the idealistic poster. Youths and older generations will always differ in their thoughts. Larkin is sure of this. The modern paradise is of a sexual nature, he seems to convey, now that the sexual revolution has come. Contraception makes fucking more acceptable in society as it is safe and children are growing up with a reality that everyone old has dreamed of all their lives . High Windows looks to the past, but also to the new present; and it shows how the two differ and are also so similar. Forty years back, Larkin suspects that the parents of his generation were rather conservative, thinking thatll be the life for all the carefree young kids. That the rebellious generation would go down the long slide to happiness and not feel that they had much responsibility. This is the view that Larkin has of the new kids coming through, and that his generation would be pushed to one side like an outd ated combine harvester to make way for the modern revolution. This concept of a long slide is ambiguous however, as the slide is travelling away from the height that goals, responsibility and success have. This is the double edged sword that Larkin finds that those free bloody birds have coming for them. Time moves us forwards so that, like old technology, aged practices get moved aside for new, more exciting ones. But the views of the experienced elder generation stay the same, in that more initiative and work is needed to help with the carefree lifestyle. Larkin gives time a negative slant in his poems as he contemplates the way it works to the advantage of those that have yet to experience the faults it brings. The gap between age brackets is a difference that time will keep constant, an understanding never quite mutual between them. Society progresses and degrades. And time teaches us how our mistakes are there to be learnt from, while it may always seem to dangle that fact in front of our faces. Our element is time, and we must make sure to learn from Larkins time and better ourselves.