MCMXIV

Phillip Larkin

Those long uneven lines

Standing as patiently

As if they were stretched outside

The Oval or Villa Park,

The crowns of hats, the sun

On moustached archaic faces

Grinning as if it were all

An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached

Established names on the sunblinds,

The farthings and sovereigns,

And dark-clothed children at play

Called after kings and queens,

The tin advertisements

For cocoa and twist, and the pubs

Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring

The place-names all hazed over

With flowering grasses, and fields

Shadowing Domesday lines

Under wheats' restless silence;

The differently-dressed servants

With tiny rooms in huge houses,

The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,

Never before or since,

As changed itself to past

Without a word--the men

Leaving the gardens tidy,

The thousands of marriages

Lasting a little while longer:

Never such innocence again

– MCMXIV,” like many of Philip Larkin’s poems, is a meditation. This poetic form, modelled on John Donne’s prose Meditations, begins with a description of an object, a place, or an event. The description leads directly into a response or a consideration of the issues, problems, and complexities suggested by the object; this consideration then leads to a conclusion or resolution. In “MCMXIV” the object is a 1914 photograph of British volunteers lined up in front of an army recruiting office after England entered World War I. By extension the poem considers the pre war British society that those men represent. The poem itself does not overtly indicate that the photograph is the object of meditation; rather, the title (Roman numerals for 1914) and the description provide that context. While readers can not know whether Larkin was contemplating a particular photograph, there are examples of this type of picture in most illustrated histories of World War I.

– Larkin restates for his time the major literary interpretation of the war. His conclusion that innocence was lost as a result of the horrors of war is consistent with the reading of the experience given by his predecessors. In fact, this reading has reached the status of myth or master narrative—a coherent story which claims to explain a major social phenomenon. In this myth, prewar England is seen as idyllic. The social order was fixed and secure: Each class knew its role and strove only to succeed in that role. The country shared adherence to the Church of England. Science assured an unbroken path of progress, promising that life would continue to get better and better. All was orderly, civil, and decorous. In fact, in an ironic contrast, the summer of 1914, the months immediately before the war, were warm and sunny, the most beautiful summer anyone could remember.

Context

– Phillip Larkin was born four years after the conclusion of the war . He composed poetry which reflected the dreariness of post-war provincial England .

– He often employed the traditional tools of poetry, rhyme, stanza and meter , to explore the often uncomfortable or terrifying experiences thrust upon common people in the modern age .

– World War I was a highly literary war—it was unusual in the number of soldiers who wrote poems, novels, and memoirs about their experience. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Ford Madox Ford, Robert Graves, and David Jones are but a few of the authors to write major works about the war experience. So important is World War I as a subject in modern British literature that it is in no way unusual to see Larkin returning to it nearly fifty years after the event. With “MCMXIV” he places himself in a significant literary tradition.

Structure

– Each Stanza consists of eight lines, yet only the fourth and eighth line in each stanza rhyme . Therefore it could be argued that the poems structure is not very rigid, due to the abundance of lines that do not rhyme . Larkin perhaps chose to do this because he may have wanted to have more freedom in his writing – without this restriction , it could be argued that the poem is not forced – it is instead a very raw and real exploration of certain elements of the war .

Main themes of the poem

– Realties of War

– The home front

– Loss of innocence

– Class and background

The “long uneven lines” are the men as they line up to enlist . The oval and Park are both sporting venues for cricket and football, and so it is ironic that the men are standing “patiently” as if they are simply waiting to get inside; this is symbolic of the overall attitude held by the men who wanted to enlist, because patriotic as they were. They were unaware of the realities of war .

One of the possible interpretations of the word ‘archaic’ is that these faces belong to the men of the older generation, who are also unaware of the harsh and brutal realities that the younger men will have to face. However another interpretation is that this part of the stanza still revolves around the men who are waiting to enlist, and that they are ‘grinning’, they will soon miss and long for the days which they could take pleasure from , such as the ones during an ‘August bank holiday’

Everyone believed that the war would be over by Christmas , and so the poets choice of the word ‘ lark; conveys this lack attitude .

“The crowns of hats, the sun

On moustached achaic faces

Grinning as if it were all

An August Bank Holiday lark ;

This stanza explores aspects of the homefront. It could be argued that she shops are shut perhaps due to the shortage of food , as many people stashed food for later on – many stores ran out of food at the start of August 1914 . The ‘ children at play’ gives the reader the image of very innocent aspect of childhood and youth . However , the dark clothes provided a stark contrast, giving a sense of foreboding .

And the shut shops, the bleached

Establishments names on the sunblind's,

The farthings and sovereigns,

And dark clothed children at play

Called after Kings and queens,The tin advertisements For coca and twist and the pubswiden open all day

The remainder of this stanza explores more aspects of the homefront . The ‘ tin advertisements’ represent the propaganda that encouraged young men to enlist .

The pubs ‘ wide open all day’ are a result of it being a Bank Holiday . However, this significant because it conveys a sense of jubilation and happiness, which was the general feeling held by people due to the fact that they believed the war would be over by Christmas and that the young men would be ‘ doing their bit’ for their country .

And the countryside not caring: The place – names all hazed over With flowering grasses, and fields Shadowing Domesday lines Under wheats restless silence;The differently – dresses servants With tiny rooms in huge houses,The dust behind limousines;

The countryside is described as ‘not caring’ – this could be seen as a reference to nature’s indifference to man made catastrophes (also seen ‘ The explosion’) The ‘Place – names ‘ is a reference to the names that certain areas and regions were given when Willian the Conquer had the doomsday Book written .

The ‘different – dressed servants’ could be seen as being a reference to the men who fought in the war, implying that all of the men, regardless of their previous class and background, was a ‘servant’ to his county . This is supported by the phrase ‘differently dressed ‘ .

Never such innocence, Never before or since,As changed itself to past Without a word – the men Leaving the gardens tidy,The thousands of marriagesLasting a little while longer:Never such innocence again .

This stanza explores the loss of innocence experienced by the men as a result of thwar. The innocence and happiness that is portrayed at the beginning of the poem could be seen as having been taken away by the ‘shadowing Domesday ‘ referenced to in the third stanza (the war being seen as Domesday)

The men were leaving their tidy ‘gardens’ , houses and homes to the ‘untidiness’ of War, unaware that they would become ‘tainted’ . The ‘thousands of marriages’ represents the marriages that would soon end as a result of the men who failed to return home .

Larkins choice of the phrase ‘Never such innocence again’ gives the reader the impression that he is implying that such a horrific and brutal event could never possibly happen again . But because ‘ MCMXIV’ was published in 1964, after World War Two , the line could be interpreted as being ironic .

Nostalgia

Carol Ann Duffy

Those early mercenaries, it made them ill –leaving the mountains, leaving the high, fine airto go down, down. What they gotwas money, dull, crude coins clenchedin the teeth; strange food, the wrong taste,stones in the belly; and the wrong sounds,the wrong smells, the wrong light, every breath –wrong. They had an ache here, Doctor,they pined, wept, grown men. It was killing them.

It was a given name. Hearing tell of it,there were those whop stayed put, fearfulof a sweet pain in the heart; of how it hurt,in that heavier air, to hearthe music of home – the sad pipes – summoning,in the dwindling light of the plains,a particular place – where maybe you met a girl,or searched for a yellow ball in the long grass,found it just as your mother called you in.

But the word was out. Some would never fall in love had they not heard of love.So the priest stood at the stile with his headin his hands, crying at the workings of memorythrough the colour of leaves, and the schoolteacheropened a book to the scent of her youth, too late.It was Spring when one returned, with his lifein a sack on his back, to find the same streetwith the same sign over the inn, the same bellchiming the hour on the clock, and everything changed.

About:

– It is about the war and how the soldiers miss their loved ones and homes. It is from their perspective and tells us how they reminisce about their lives before they had to go to war.

– The reader can see a harsh contrast from the warmth of the idea f home to the coldness of war and suffering forced upon the soldiers.

– The reader is forced to feel sadness and sympathy/empathy for the soldiers.

Context

– The soldiers Duffy uses are the Swiss mercenaries in the 17th century. They fought for other peoples causes for money. Through doing these violent actions, they were able to provide for themselves. Their motivation came from the fact that they lived in complete poverty. The were feared by many people.

– They didn’t enjoy this lifestyle as the poem also suggests. They missed their homes and longed for what they used to have. It was believed that this natural longing for home was actually a mental illness caused when the descended mountains and the air pressure changed. They were also thought to be possessed by demons, but in fact it was just the nostalgia that they experienced.

– VOICE:

– The voice is represented by the perspective of the soldiers as a collective. The detail contained in the poem is suggestive of multiple experiences even though there is only one speaker. The reader is able to form a connection from the level of detail.

– SPEAKER:

– The reader can assume that the speaker is someone who has had a personal experience of war and this sense of nostalgia. The reader receives the notion that the speaker has a deeper understanding of how a soldier would feel. The reader is forced to feel sympathy through the narrators use of emotive language, ‘wept’, ‘fear’. The reader is able to gain a stronger understanding of the extreme effects of the war on individuals because we see that even once they have come home and everything seems to be the same, everything is completely different now.

– FORM:

– Written in three stanzas, first two have 9 lines, last one has 10 lines. This could suggest the progression of the feeling of nostalgia.

Main themes of the poem

– Time

– Nostalgia

– Loss

– Past

Stanza 1

Stanza 2

Stanza 3