Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Philip Larkin's "Love Again" is a stark and unflinching exploration of unfulfilled desire, jealousy, and the bitterness that accompanies repeated romantic disappointment.

The poem opens with a jarring image of the speaker engaging in self-pleasure at an odd hour, highlighting his loneliness and longing. The line "wanking at ten past three" (A) sets a tone of frustration and isolation. The mention of "The bedroom hot as a bakery" (A) conveys a stifling, uncomfortable environment, both physically and emotionally. The "drink gone dead, without showing how / To meet tomorrow, and afterwards" (B) suggests a lack of direction or purpose, exacerbating the speaker's sense of despair.

Larkin continues to delve into the speaker's jealousy and anguish with vivid, almost voyeuristic imagery: "Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt" (D) and "Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare" (E). These lines reveal the speaker's painful awareness of his lover's intimacy with another, which he is expected to ignore or find humorous. The phrase "Or find it funny, or not to care, / Even ... but why put it into words?" (C) reflects the speaker's struggle to articulate his complex emotions and the futility he feels in doing so.

In the final stanza, Larkin shifts to a broader reflection on love and its impact on others: "That spreads through other lives like a tree / And sways them on in a sort of sense" (F). The metaphor of a tree suggests that love influences and affects many lives, growing and spreading its influence. However, for the speaker, love has never worked out, which he attributes to "Something to do with violence / A long way back, and wrong rewards, / And arrogant eternity" (G).

These concluding lines hint at deeper, possibly traumatic experiences that have shaped the speaker's outlook on love. The mention of "violence" and "wrong rewards" suggests a history of emotional or physical trauma, while "arrogant eternity" implies a sense of inevitable, unchanging fate that has continually thwarted his attempts at finding lasting love. The poem’s raw language and candid imagery vividly portray the speaker's inner turmoil and the complexities of his emotional landscape.

In "Love Again," Larkin uses a mix of raw language and poignant imagery to capture the speaker's intense emotions and the complexities of his experience with love. The irregular rhyme scheme mirrors the chaotic and unpredictable nature of his romantic life, underscoring the themes of longing, jealousy, and disillusionment. Through this candid exploration, Larkin provides a powerful commentary on the pain and frustration that often accompany unfulfilled desire and repeated romantic failure.

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