A Stylistic Analysis of Wants by Philip Larkin

A Stylistic Analysis of Wants by Philip Larkin Abstract:This paper analyzes the stylistic features of the poem …Wants‟ writte n by Philip Larkin. First of all, the paper states the brief accounts of the auth or and the poem. Then it focuses on its stylistic features: lexis, grammar, phon etics and so on. Last some links between stylistic features and interpretation ar e explored to illustrate the importance of stylistics to poetry appreciation.1. Brief Introduction of Philip Larkin and His Poem WantsPhilip Arthur Larkin, as an English poet, novelist and jazz critic, is a fairl y traditional poet in terms of his use of poetic forms. He is often associated with the traditional poets like Hardy, Edward Thomas and John Betjeman. He spent his working life as a university librarian and was offered the Poet Laure ateship following the death of John Betjeman, but declined the post. Larkin is commonly regarded as one of the greatest English poets of the latter half of t he twentieth century. He first came to prominence with the publication in 1955 of his second collection, The Less Deceived. The Whitsun Weddings and Hig h Windows followed in 1964 and 1974. In 2003 Larkin was chosen as "the na tion's best-loved poet" in a survey by the Poetry Book Society and in 2008 T he Times named Larkin as the greatest post-war writer.Philip Larkin is an acute observer of the social side of English life and is often concerned with death and growing old (LU, 2001). He wrote the poem “Wants” in 1950. In the poem, both of these preoccupati ons can be seen.In the first stanza, Larkin set us in the middle of mundane, middle class English social life. He notes that we involve ourselves in all sorts of socializin g; but even though we fill up our time with such social activities, Larkin sugg ests that such a life is empty and that although we disguise it from ourselves, underneath we really want to be alone. In the second stanza he extends the wish to be alone to its logical terminus, death. He suggests, then, that in spiteof our social involvement we all have a death-wish within us, and that imme rsing ourselves in the social round is harmful in that it is a mechanism we us e to prevent ourselves from coming to terms with death and our desire for it. Unlike many modern poems, this one is not a crossword puzzle; it is fairly ea sy to understand.2. Stylistic features of the poemPoetry as a kind of literature owns some unique linguistic features and it can give the readers a sense of beauty. The famous poem “Wants” will be an alyzed stylistically and the stylistic features will be given in terms of lexis, gr ammar, phonetics.2.1 Lexis2.1.1 RepetitionThe last line of each stanza is a repetition of its first line and the followi ng items wish, alone, desire, oblivion, run are repeated. It is the same with th e prepositions beyond and beneath, which are lexically fuller English prepositio ns.2.1.2 Lexical groupingsMany lexical items in this poem belong to a series of conceptual groups:a) wish, desire, wants. wish and desire are synonyms indicating a felt lac k (in this case a lack of being alone or nothingness!).wants is also a near sy nonyms of wish.b)alone, oblivion, death. These three words all have to do with loneliness. death and oblivion are a rather extreme form..c) beyond, beneath. The two prepositions express remoteness, either horizo ntally or vertically from the locus of the speaker.d) Invitation cards, printed directions of sex, photographed, calendar, life i nsurance, fertility rites. All these lexical items are capable of interpretation as having to do with printed matter. It is apparent that the words and phrases all have to do with social life on a scale from the most general (social groups) to the most personal (relations between two individuals, in this case, couples) v ia an immediate unit, the family (LI, 2005).2.1.3 Semantic-syntactic deviationsa) The sky grows dark with invitation cards(2)The notion of the sky growing dark is a dead metaphor in English, which is common. However the collocation with invitation cards is odd. Here the deviation (along with the generic plural) helps us to suppose an overwhelming number of social invitations (obligations?) (Short, 1984).b) The printed directions of sex (3)Sex cannot literally have printed directions as it is an abstract noun. The phrase could refer to books on sexual positions, instructions on conceptive pac kets or how to calculate female ovulation periods in order to avoid or ensure conception. Short (1984) pointed out that the first possibility, which seems to be the best most likely as it fits in best with the tone of the rest of the poem, help view love making as a mere matter of mechanics. The other possibilities also do this, but to a lesser extent.c) The tabled fertility rite(8)Fertility rites,which obviously have to with sex, are usually associated wi th primitive, nonliterate tribes. Here, however, they are modified by tabled, whi ch indicates that whatever is referred to is written down in a tabular fashion (hence mechanical). That fact that what is referred to here is described as a rit ual reinforces the mechanical associations for sex seen in line 3.d) desire of oblivion runs(6)Desire of oblivion is abstract and it can not literally run. Presumably desir e of oblivion is being likened to a river, and as it appears as subject and acto r to runs, it appears that the individual‟s desire is one which is not consciousl y motivated.e) the artful tensions of the calendar(7)Calendar doesn‟t literally have tensions. This oddity can be interpreted as the possible conflicts between the engagements. The artful tensions are anotheroddity. Artful usually has to do with intended actions, so maybe the events o n the calendar are designed artfully to conflict.f) The costly aversion of the eyes from death(9)Larkin has blended two expressions together. Aversion means a strong disl ike. Aversion of the eyes from death expresses neatly the idea of turning away from something distasteful, namely death. Besides,aversion is modified by co stly.Aversion cannot literally cost money. The costly means the great disadvant age to the individual concerned.2.2 Grammar2.2.1Parallelisma) The middle three lines of each stanza consist of a set of parallels:In stanza 1, line 2-4 each consist of subordinate clause beginning with the linker however. In spite of the colon at the end of line 1 and the dash at th e end of line 4, which separate the repeated lines (1&5) from the middle three lines, it appears that syntactically the three …middle line‟ clauses are all subor dinated to the elliptical repeated clause.In stanza 2 the middle three lines consist of the preposition despite plus a list of definite noun phrases which are all complements to that preposition. T he headed nouns of the Noun Phrase (NPs) involved are all abstract.b) The repeated lines in the two stanzas show similarities. They all begin with fronted three-word prepositional phrase including the word all. The prepo sitional phrases are all separated off from the rest of their lines by a comma.All four lines end with a major punctuation boundary (line1 and 6 with a semicolon and line5 and 10 with a full stop).2.2.2 Definiteness and GenericsThere are no indefinite NPs whatsoever in the poem. Every lexicalized NP s either begins with the definite articles or has a generic nouns at its head. Th is suggests a tension between specific ness (the poet is referring to the specific situation around him, his life) and generality. The generic nouns force us intoseeing Larkin‟s comments as being not just about his own situations but also about modern life in general. As a result, a number of the nouns (e.g. the wi sh) appear to be capable of both specific and general interpretations at the same time (e.g. the speaker‟s wish, the wish of people in general).2.2.3 TenseThe whole poem is in the present tense. Th is aids the …specific but at the same time general‟ interpretation, as the present tense can be used to refer to the specific present situation and also to universal, timeless matters. These tw o aspects of the English present tense are referred to as the …instantaneous‟ and …timeless‟ present.2.2.4 PronounsThere are four pronouns in the poem, which in effect two pairs of repetiti ons in the first and last line of each stanza. All this in line 1 appears to be d emonstrative, referring out exophorically to the situation around the speaker. As line 5 is a repeat of line 1, it may have the same referring function. But in fact all this in line 5 can also be seen as functioning anaphorically--- that is, i t refers back to the clauses in line2-4. As a result, this this reflects the specifi c/general tension said above. The same can be said of it all in line 6 and 10, with the added point that the first it all is also capable of anaphoric reference back to the first stanza.2.3 Phoneticsa)Beyond all this; beneath it all(line 1, 5, 6 and 10)The repeated prepositional phrases at the beginnings of line 1, 5, 6 and 1 0 are similar in that they all consist of three words with 2, 1, 1 syllable patte rn. This phonetic parallelism helps reinforce the structural parallels pointed out earlier.b) this; wish(Line 1 and 5)They embody present versus hypothetical state.c)dark; cards(line 2)Dark has connotations of threat, and sometimes death; card here has an o bvious social reference.d)directions; sex(Line 3) family; photographed; flagstaff (Line 4)Here the assonance and alliteration help bring out the ritual and mechanic al aspects of the personal relations described in the poem.4. Link between stylistic feature and interpretationThe poem “Wants” is characterized with parallelism and repetition. Line 2 -4 in stanza 1 and lines 6 and 10 in stanza 2 are paralleled and Larkin thus i nvites us to see them as being in some sense the same, in spite of the differe nt things which they refer to. All six lines describe aspect of social life, whic h is then contrasted with the wish to be alone and the wish for oblivion or de ath.Furthermore, the three parallel items in each of the three middle lines of each stanza can be related together to show three finer aspects of the social lif e: the social group, the family and the sexually related people. The line 1and 5, 6 and 10 are repeated. The repetitions as well as the deviant, mainly metap horical, expressions in line 2-4 and 7-9 indicate the unreal, mechanical nature of social reality, especially, paradoxically, at the most personal end of the scal e. A further parallelism, the assonance between this and wish point out the gre at difference between the reality and the wish. In reality, man lives as a social animal in guise. However, they all wish for loneliness and death. Thus Philip Larkin portrayed the real picture of that times (LU, 2003).5. ConclusionBased on the poem “Wants”, this essay analyzes the stylistic feature such as lexis, grammar and phonetics and points out the link between the stylistic f eature and the interpretation of the poem. The importance of stylistic analysis makes the readers to have a deeper understanding of the poem and enhance th eir appreciation of poems. When reading a poem, we can‟t just focus on their contents but on their stylistic features since they are also of great help for app reciating poems.ReferencesLI, Yanlin. (2005). The Poet Laureate Philip Larkin and His “Wants”. US-China Foreign Language, 3(12), 14-17.LU, Aijing. (2001). Seeking after the Lost Past—on the themes of Philip Larki n‟s poetry. Journal of Sichuan International Studies University, 17(1), 53-55.LU, Aijing. (2003). The New Artistic Quality of Philip Larkin‟s Poetic Langua ge. Journal of Xiangtan Normal University, 25(4), 94-96.Short, Michael. H. (1984). Who is stylistics?. Foreign Language, (6), 37-42.Appendix:WantsBeyond all this, the wish to be alone:However the sky grows dark with invitation-cardsHowever we follow the printed directions of sexHowever the family is photographed under the flagstaff—Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs:Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,The costly aversion of the eyes from death—Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.Philip Larkin。