Week One Blog
Jan. 16th, 2012 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
allyssamickeyPart I
Though I think Larkin’s poem is very powerful and well put, I would not call it “great literature”. This is because the poem does is so straight forward and doesn’t have more meaning beneath it’s initial layer, at least not to me. It is very plain what the meaning of the poem is, and it is not something that I would read over and over again to try to unravel the secrets within.
It is very relative to everyone, especially with the way that it seems to directly address the reader with the use of “you”. I think the use of the harsh language and how it transitions to a softer tone is very effective and well used. These are things that make it “great” and it is of course “literature”. I really enjoyed this poem, and think it’s very clever; but it isn’t “great literature”.
The theme in this poem is very universal. Everyone has parents, and everyone has issues. This passing on of issues is shown as a generational transition in this poem. This idea isn’t unique to just this poem, but is often discussed within Psychology and other fields of study. Whether faults be genetic or created by environment, they are very often passed to children of the next generation, just as those children will grow up to pass these faults to their own offspring.
Part II
Both Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” and “Eveline” portray parenthood as a negative thing, but then shed more light on to this universal subject. In the beginning of Larkin’s poem he talks about how parents “fuck you up”. They pass their faults to you, and add faults of your own. “Eveline” also starts with this negative tone towards parenthood. She talks about her father and how he abuses her and how awful her life is living with him. However, as she goes on in this story she starts to shed more life on to her life, and realizes how she loves her father and how he needs her and she him. In the end she decides to stay and continue her life with him, resisting her chance to run away from that life. Larkin’s poem goes on to say how it isn’t your parents fault that you get messed up, but it is a thing that goes back far through generations. It is just a part of raising children, and if you want to stop the cycle then you shouldn’t have children yourself.
Though I think Larkin’s poem is very powerful and well put, I would not call it “great literature”. This is because the poem does is so straight forward and doesn’t have more meaning beneath it’s initial layer, at least not to me. It is very plain what the meaning of the poem is, and it is not something that I would read over and over again to try to unravel the secrets within.
It is very relative to everyone, especially with the way that it seems to directly address the reader with the use of “you”. I think the use of the harsh language and how it transitions to a softer tone is very effective and well used. These are things that make it “great” and it is of course “literature”. I really enjoyed this poem, and think it’s very clever; but it isn’t “great literature”.
The theme in this poem is very universal. Everyone has parents, and everyone has issues. This passing on of issues is shown as a generational transition in this poem. This idea isn’t unique to just this poem, but is often discussed within Psychology and other fields of study. Whether faults be genetic or created by environment, they are very often passed to children of the next generation, just as those children will grow up to pass these faults to their own offspring.
Part II
Both Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” and “Eveline” portray parenthood as a negative thing, but then shed more light on to this universal subject. In the beginning of Larkin’s poem he talks about how parents “fuck you up”. They pass their faults to you, and add faults of your own. “Eveline” also starts with this negative tone towards parenthood. She talks about her father and how he abuses her and how awful her life is living with him. However, as she goes on in this story she starts to shed more life on to her life, and realizes how she loves her father and how he needs her and she him. In the end she decides to stay and continue her life with him, resisting her chance to run away from that life. Larkin’s poem goes on to say how it isn’t your parents fault that you get messed up, but it is a thing that goes back far through generations. It is just a part of raising children, and if you want to stop the cycle then you shouldn’t have children yourself.
