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The View of Death in Philip Larkin’s The Trees and The Building
- 1 City University of Hong Kong
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Abstract
Philip Larkin was one of the most important poets in British poetry after the Second World War and one of the outstanding representatives of the Movement. Death is one of his core themes in his poetry. This article is designed to show Larkin’ s views and attitudes of death through the analysis his The Trees and The Building, employing New Criticism theory. Under the guidance of this perspective, this article shows that Larkin is preoccupied with death, but is not simply pessimistic and despairing in the face of death. Although the poem The Building is filled with sad and dark atmosphere, it is imbued with an implicitly positive attitude. The same is true of the poem The Trees. The Trees provokes the reader to think about life through the observation of trees’ blight. In the attitude toward death, facing death and discussing it calmly so as to realise the meaning and value of life, is perhaps the best way to overcome death.
Keywords
Philip Larkin, view of death, new criticism theory
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Cite this article
Du,X. (2023). The View of Death in Philip Larkin’s The Trees and The Building. Communications in Humanities Research,20,147-151.
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Volume title: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
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