Entrance activity:

Once you’ve sat down, start telling

what comes to your mind when
you think of spring (keep it decent!)

Coming – Philip Larkin

L.O. Understanding how
Larkin uses language to
arouse anticipation and
cheer in his audience
Compare your picture to
the poem
• Read the poem.
• Tell the class what you think of the poem.
• How do the images and emotions Larkin makes us
see and feel compare to what you drew in the starter
activity?
• What do you think he’s sharing with us exactly?
The poem in a nutshell
• In ‘Spring’ Larkin celebrates the#3change of
Unseen advice
the seasons and his excitement
Ensure you know theas Spring is
‘story’ but never just
coming. explain a poem
• The world around him reminds him that
spring is coming  ‘longer evenings’
(mind the European context!) & ‘a thrush
sings’.
• The happy anticipation is seen in the
repeated ‘it will be spring soon’.
• His excitement comes out even more in
the simile ‘feel like a child’
A brief note on the poet: Philip Larkin
• Philip Larkin (1922–1985) an eminent writer
in postwar England, was a national favourite
poet.
• Larkin achieved acclaim although he only
published four volumes of poetry that
appeared at almost decade-long intervals.
These collections, present "a poetry from
which even people who distrust poetry, most
people, can take comfort and delight,"
according to X. J. Kennedy in the New
Criterion.
• Do you agree when looking at ‘Coming’?
 This poem describes the poet’s mood
Coming :  when winter is coming to an end, and
when spring is about to arrive.
On longer evenings,  When the evenings are
longer, the tranquil house-
Light, chill and yellow,  fronts are bathed in light
which is chilly and yellow.
Bathes the serene
Personification of the
Foreheads of houses. houses which have ‘serene
foreheads’ and brick work
which is astonishing.He
makes the houses sound
solid and comforting.
 Then a thrush is heard singing
• A thrush sings,  in the midst of laurels in the
deep, bare garden, in its sharp
but sweet voice. 
Laurel-surrounded  The singing of the thrush
seems to surprise the
In the deep bare garden,  brickwork of the houses. The
thrush seems to be saying
Its fresh-peeled voice repeatedly that soon the spring
would come and take the place
of winter (which is now about
Astonishing the brickwork. to end).

[The laurel is a kind of garden-shrub. But the word “laurel” is

also used for a kind of tree the foliage of which was regarded in
olden days as a symbol of victory in war or of eminence in
poetry.The garden is bare because the intensity of the cold
during the winter has robbed the trees of their leaves].
 On hearing the singing of the
• It will be spring soon,  thrush, the poet thinks of his
childhood which he
It will be spring soon— describes as a period of
boredom, and a period
which he has forgotten.
And I, whose childhood The autobiographical
element in this poem
Is a forgotten boredom,  imparts a special interest to
it. Larkin here recalls his
Feel like a child childhood which he
describes as “a forgotten
boredom.” There is no
memory of his childhood to
gladden his heart or to cheer
him.
• Who comes on a scene Then he feels like a child who
has suddenly appeared on a
Of adult reconciling,  scene in which the adults are
getting reconciled with each
And can understand nothing other (or a scene in which
the adult people are
becoming reconciled to their
But the unusual laughter,  lives in this world). 

And starts to be happy. 

On such occasions the poet can understand nothing except
the unusual laughter of the people; and then the poet too
begins to feel happy.
 Let’s look at the language / style and its effect
Unseen advice #4: don’t just look at the
• The fist thing noticeable about thepoetic
poem areline
devices, thelengths
shortcanlines. What
also have a
significant effect!
effect does this have?
• It increases the pace, making us be impatient with him
• What’s the effect of the contrast between the houses and the
singing thrush?
• The bird is quite fragile, free and fresh (like Spring) compared to
the solid houses.
• The poem contains quite a few images. Which ones and what effect
do they have? Unseen advice #5: it’s great if you can find
• Houses covered in laurel bathing
metaphors
in and similes,
longer but ALWAYS
light put intothat
/ bird song words
what effect they have on the reader, otherwise you
even astonishes the houses / adults laughing won’t get any marks!
• What effects does the extended simile at the end of the poem have
on the audience?
• It makes it possible for everyone to understand the emotion
• With its short line and single stanza ,this looks like
the single shot that poet described.
Rounding off

• In your groups, write a short poem

about your favourite season
arriving.

• The group with the best poem

earns merits!