Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Poetry essay

In the poem "Here" by Philip Larkin, there is a compare and contrast of city life against country life. Larkin uses diction, tone, and imagery to show his attitude towards the subjects.
Larkin starts off by saying how busy the city is and he goes into great detail to show the reader how it is like to live in the city. Then he goes on to say how lonely it is to live in the country and how their is nothing to do there. Larkin's tone towards the city is very upbeat and happy but his tone towards the country is depressing. This causes the reader's mood to to be happy towards the city and sad towards the country.
The author's diction portrays what his feelings are towards the city and country life. When he describes the country he uses words such as: isolated, removed,solitude, and loneliness. These are all words that would not make someone want to go to the country. When he talks about the city he describes how the people live and he says how the people are "urban yet simple." He says how they are happy with their lives because they can have anything they want.
Larkin's use of imagery in this poem is very important in getting his attitude towards these two places across. The way he describes the country is vague compared to his description of the city, this helps the reader get the right image of the two places. When he describes the city he tells the reader exactly what the reader would see but when he talks about the country he just talks about how isolated the people are.
Larkin uses the use of diction, tone, and imagery to allow the reader to understand his attitude towards country and city life. He loves the city and dislikes the country and shows this with the use of many poetry terms.

1 comment:

Michelle said...

I'm not even sure I understand what the poem is supposed to mean. I'm just going to go back and rewrite the entire thing because this essay is just horrible.