The Whitsun Weddings
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The Whitsun Weddings is a collection of 32 poems by Philip Larkin. It was first published by Faber and Faber in the United Kingdom on 28 February 1964. It was a commercial success, by the standards of poetry publication, with the first 4,000 copies being sold within two months. A U.S. edition appeared some seven months later.
It contains many of Larkin's best known poems, such as 'The Whitsun Weddings', 'Days', 'Mr Bleaney', 'MCMXIV', and 'An Arundel Tomb'.
Contents
- Here
- Mr Bleaney
- Nothing To Be Said
- Love Songs in Age
- Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses
- Broadcast
- Faith Healing
- For Sidney Bechet
- Home is so Sad
- Toads Revisited
- Water
- The Whitsun Weddings
- Self's the Man
- Take One Home for the Kiddies
- Days
- MCMXIV
- Talking in Bed
- The Large Cool Store
- A Study of Reading Habits
- As Bad as a Mile
- Ambulances
- The Importance of Elsewhere
- Sunny Prestatyn
- First Sight
- Dockery and Son
- Ignorance
- Reference Back
- Wild Oats
- Essential Beauty
- Send No Money
- Afternoons
- An Arundel Tomb
Themes
In a number of critiques, themes have been identified which run through the poems in the collection.[1]
Bachelorhood and Marriage
Larkin never married and many of his poems can be interpreted as personal, and social, explorations into marriage and bachelorhood. Poems with strong interpretations concerning relationships might include;
- Mr Bleaney
- Love Songs in Age
- Broadcast
- The Whitsun Weddings
- Self's the Man
- Talking in Bed
- The Large Cool Store
- Dockery and Son
- Reference Back
- Wild Oats
- Afternoons
- An Arundel Tomb
Consumerism and the changing British 'Landscape'
Larkin's poetry has often been interpreted as portraying a personal nostalgia for orthodoxy and tradition. Many of his poems draw the readers attention to the urbanisation of the British landscape, the rise of a consumer based society and the slipping away of traditions. Many poems are set within the context of a journey which maps out these changing landscapes both literally and metaphorically.[2] As Stephen Regan writes 'Larkin came to be identified with an essential and enduring Englishness.'[3] It has been suggested that Larkin's inclination towards strict metrical structures and rhyme schemes is perhaps homage to more traditional poetic voices; and a resistance to this social change and his contemporaries' free verse poetry. Poems with strong interpretations concerning consumerism and the British landscape might include;
- Here
- Naturally the Foundations will Bear Your Expenses
- The Whitsun Weddings
- The Large Cool Store
- Sunny Prestatyn
- Essential Beauty
Death, Futility and Ignorance
Larkin is often considered as casting a rather miserable light on human existence. His cynical eye often questions the existential concerns of life - trying to find meaning to life in the face of death and understand how other people can remain ignorant. The measuring of life's worth and the search for happiness (of sorts) can be seen to dominate his poetry. Nearly all poems consist of a level of existential questioning but the more prominent ones in this collection might include;
- Nothing to be Said
- Faith Healing
- Home is so Sad (With a view on religion)
- Toads Revisited (With a view on work)
- Take One Home for the Kiddies
- Days
- A Study of Reading Habits
- As Bad as a Mile[4]
- Ambulances
- The Importance of Elsewhere
- First Sight
- Ignorance
- Send No Money
- An Arundel Tomb
See also
- ^ 'Philip Larkin' by Stephen Reagan, (PALGRAVE 1997), can be found on Google Books, and provides a good overview of Larkin's poetry through a collection of Essays.
- ^ This notion is explored thoroughly in Seamus Heaney's essay, 'Englands of the Mind', in Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968-1978 (London Boston, 1980).
- ^ Stephen Regan in his introduction to 'Philip Larkin',(PALGRAVE,1997) pg.1
- ^ Ben Wilkinson's article on AS Bad as a Mile deconstructs the ‘existential crisis’ of 'Judo-Christian moral failure'.