“So they had waited , till in widowhood She found them, looking for something else… ” Larkin creates an impression that the songs have waited till she was a widow and taken the space of her husband. Since her husband has died and she is left with no love, the songs find her and replace that empty love gap. The idea that love is no more than a self-protective illusion. The way the poem germinates is also typical of Larkin. An ordinary, seemingly trivial incident is explored and in the process truth is revelaed about human experience.
What is unusual about this is the lack of cynicism or bitterness.
I think this comes from the suggestion that the widow put aside not only her ‘love songs’ all those years ago, but also the youthful illusions that generate the unrealistic expectations we have of love The illusion in “Faith Healing” is the women actually striving for love. As they are being healed, that love that they experience from the faith healer is the illusion they see, but the reality is that they still have no love and that they have never had it.
Larkin despises the women as he describes them as “Moustached in flowered frocks they shake” The connotations of “Moustached” are negative especially towards women.
Larkin could also be showing an indication to how ‘ugly’ they are and by them being so having experienced no love. “Relearning how each frank submissive chord… ” Here, the women is relearning the songs that she had kept, notice they are submissive.
Larkin gives the impression that the chords have actually filled that empty gap that she had when she had no love and that her desperation for love is so high, she has to be submissive and give in to experience it one more. It’s the illusion she gives in to. The imagery created is the songs taken complete control over.
Linking it with the following extract, “unfailing sense… spring-woken tree“,. ‘unfailing sense’ shows that the women is being submissive again and that her body is dominated by the control of the songs and it’s not failing. ‘spring-woken tree’ shows connotations of freshness, it’s as if she started everything from scratch and that it’s a new start for her. There are similarities in both poems. Both of the poems have the feeling of love never experienced by the women. In both poems there a sense of soft love that is shown through the words, the assonance represents it.
There’s the enjambment that is recognised in both poems, the rhythm and the pace of the poem is very steady and slow which juxtaposes the slow and steady love that is being presented in the poems. The women in the poem also seem to progress towards the love they actually wanted they experience that love for the first time. The main difference in the poem is what is actually being replaced to give them that love, In Faith Healing their love is given from the Faith Healer but in Love Songs and Age the love is provided by the songs.
Another difference Is when Larkin despises the women in Faith Healing when he talks about them being “Moustached”, but in Love Songs and Age he doesn’t write anything negative towards the women. In these poems there aren’t any fricatives which separate these poems from other ones. Larkin’s intention was to make this gentle and have it processed through assonance and sibilance which represents soft and romantic words. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Philip Larkin section.
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