Compare Plath and Larkin - 3241 Words

Compare and contrast the ways in which death is portrayed in Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Days’ and ‘Ambulances’ and Sylvia plath’s ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘Death and Co’ The poems i am going to analyse are: †¢ Lady Lazarus †¢ Death and Co †¢ Ambulances †¢ Days It is understatement to say that both Sylvia Plath and Philip Larkin have immense depth and subsidiary meanings to their poems, both writers expertly structure their poems and used varied techniques to convey their themes of death and instil their messages to their readers. Plath goes about it an autobiographical manner and parades death as a theatrical show leaving the audience in shock and awe however Larkin presents death in a rather trivial manner in comparison to Plath. He juxtaposes the†¦show more content†¦At times the tone is hysterically strident and demanding: â€Å"unwrap me hand and foot— The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. Iambic pentameter is also used in Lady Lazarus because it mimics the rhythm of conversational speech and makes it closer to spontaneous speech. This also highlights Lady Lazarus aural quality as it is meant to be read aloud which emphasizes it rhetorical intensity and perhaps the power that Lady Lazarus has gained throughout the poem â€Å" I am your opus I am your valuable The pure gold baby† The spontaneous structure of the poem emphasises the emotional and physcological disintegration of Lady Lazarus and how she speaks spontaneously out of pain that she is feeling form her suicidal attempts On the contrary, Larkin also used five groups of six lines of poetry (sestet) of iambic trimeter and roughly--there are some irregularities, a, with the first and last lines of each sestet rhyming, and the middle rhyming â€Å"a–b-a-b† like a ballad. The second stanza, only the first and last lines have been ended with punctuation leaving everything in the middle flowing. The women in the shops are detached from the Wild white faceShow MoreRelatedA journey is the act of travelling from one place to another. Both Plath and Larkin portray this in2100 Words   |  9 Pagestravelling from one place to another. Both Plath and Larkin portray this in a literal and metaphorical sense. I will analyse and compare ways in which Plath and Larkin portray their ideas about what a journey is to them. ‘Ariel’ and ‘Sheep in Fog’ by Plath portray the idea of a journey as a metaphorical escape as she struggles with her own insecurities and paranoia and contemplates death as the end to her journey. ‘Here’ and ‘Whitsun Weddings’ by Larkin portray a journey as an escape from the bustlesRead MoreLife And The Purpose Of Life By Sylvia Plath1800 Words   |  8 PagesSylvia Plath and Philip Larkin had very different outlooks on life and the purpose of life, Plath very much injected her personal experiences into her writing and was a passionate poet. Larkin was arguably a more realistic and observant poet, which in turn made him more pessimistic. Both poets explore the theme of fulfilment, Plath specifically through her poems ‘Morning Song’ and ‘Letters in November’, featured in her 1965 posthumous collection ‘Ariel’ and Larkin through his poems ‘Faith Healing’Read MorePoetry Essay Prompt2545 Words   |  11 Pages(No poet given) Prompt: Write a unified essay in which you relate the imagery of the last stanza to the speaker’s view of himself earlier in the poem and to his view of how others see poets. 1975 NO POEM 1976 Poem: â€Å"Poetry of Departures† (Philip Larkin) Prompt: Write an essay in which you discuss how the poems diction (choice of words) reveals his attitude toward the two ways of living mentioned in the poem. 1977 Poem: â€Å"Piano† [2 poems with the same name] (D. H. Lawrence) Prompt: Read both poems