An interpretation of "Wires" (by Philip Larkin)

Essai , 2001 , 8 Pages , Note: 1,0 (A)

Philologie Anglaise - Littérature

For the purpose of interpreting literature a lot of different approaches have been developed. It is up to the reader to decide which one of these methods he wants to apply and whether he wants to relate the author’s biography to the text, to consider its intertextuality or to try to interpret the text on the basis of its words alone. All of these methods focus on different aspects of a text and thus enable the reader not only to gain but also to discuss and change his point of view. It is impossible to say in general which approach is more adequate for textseven though this question could be discussed for single texts in great detail. In this essay I am going to interpret a poem by Philip Larkin mainly with respect to the one characteristic: the style and its paralinguistic aspects. In doing so I am aware of the fact that my interpretation will not be as complete as it potentially may be possible (as I will not be able to cover every feature of the poem). Nevertheless I have chosen this approach because it enables me to spent more attention to this one characteristic. A brief examination of the language used in this poem will also be included.

The question why I have decided to deal especially with the paralanguage of the poem may need some justification as it is a common belief that “Writing, of its nature, makes less use of paralanguage than speech. The physical substance of some written texts exists only to realise linguistic form” (Cook 1992, p. 71). Without any doubts this is true for most texts but still there are exceptions where the linguistic form and the content of the text do relate to each other in a motivated way. Examples of that kind are that rare that they are “both striking and well known” (Cook, 1992, p. 75) and not always is the relation as obvious as in Lewis Carrol´s “The Mouse’s Tale” (Cook, 1992 p. 76) but “hidden” within the inner structure of the text - as in the following example. I am going to prove this statement examining three different aspects of the style the poem is written in.

contents

1 Introduction

2 The poem

3 Interpretation
3.1 The plot
3.2 The Style
3.2.1 The rhyme schema
3.2.2 The enjamebement
3.2.3 The chiasmus
3.2.4 The Language

4 Conclusion

5 References

1 Introduction

For the purpose of interpreting literature a lot of different approaches have been developed. It is up to the reader to decide which one of these methods he wants to apply and whether he wants to relate the author’s biography to the text, to consider its intertextuality or to try to interpret the text on the basis of its words alone. All of these methods focus on different aspects of a text and thus enable the reader not only to gain but also to discuss and change his point of view. It is impossible to say in general which approach is more adequate for texts - even though this question could be discussed for single texts in great detail. In this essay I am going to interpret a poem by Philip Larkin mainly with respect to the one characteristic: the style and its paralinguistic aspects. In doing so I am aware of the fact that my interpretation will not be as complete as it potentially may be possible (as I will not be able to cover every feature of the poem). Nevertheless I have chosen this approach because it enables me to spent more attention to this one characteristic. A brief examination of the language used in this poem will also be included.

The question why I have decided to deal especially with the paralanguage of the poem may need some justification as it is a common belief that “Writing, of its nature, makes less use of paralanguage than speech. The physical substance of some written texts exists only to realise linguistic form” (Cook 1992, p. 71). Without any doubts this is true for most texts but still there are exceptions where the linguistic form and the content of the text do relate to each other in a motivated way. Examples of that kind are that rare that they are “both striking and well known” (Cook, 1992, p. 75) and not always is the relation as obvious as in Lewis Carrol´s “The Mouse’s Tale” (Cook, 1992 p. 76) but “hidden” within the inner structure of the text – as in the following example. I am going to prove this statement examining three different aspects of the style the poem is written in.

2 The poem

Phillip Larkin: „Wires“

The widest prairies have electric fences

For though old cattle know they must not stray

Young steers are always scenting purer water

Not here but anywhere. Beyond the wires

Leads them to blunder up against the wires

Whose muscle-shredding violence gives no quarter

Young steers become old cattle from that day

Electric limits to their widest fences

3 Interpretation

3.1 The plot

The poem describes the situation of a herd of cattle which is enclosed by electric fences. While the older ones know that they “must not stray” (verse 2) because they have experienced the “muscle shredding violence” (verse 6) of the fence, the younger steers are not willing to accept their situation and “blunder up against the wires”. In doing so they have to realise that there is no way for them to get away - even though they are much stronger than the older cattle. The electric fence stops their movements and finally forces them to stay where they are.

The interesting thing about the poem is that the experiences of the young steers are visualised within the inner structure of the poem by three different means.

3.2 Style

3.2.1 The rhyme schema

The first striking aspect is the rhyme schema. In this poem we do not have typical rhymes (such as couplets). Nevertheless there are words that rhyme: The last word of the first verse and the last word of the eighth (last) verse, the last word of second verse and the last word of the seventh verse and so on. Accordingly the rhyme schema shows as follows:

The widest prairies have electric fences a

For though old cattle know they must not stray b

Young steers are always scenting purer water c

Not here but anywhere. Beyond the wires d

Leads them to blunder up against the wires d

Whose muscle-shredding violence gives no quarter c

Young steers become old cattle from that day b

Electric limits to their widest fences a

The way the verses rhyme is a visualisation of the movement of the young steers. They start to run towards the fence from the “widest prairies” (verse 1) to the “wires” (verse 4), are pushed back and have to return. Accordingly the rhyme schema progresses from verse 1 to verse 4 and regresses from verse 5 to verse 8. The mirroring axis between the two stanzas symbolises the electric fence which causes the cattle to give in.

[...]

• Université: University of Hamburg (FB Anglistics)
• Cours: Seminar 1b: The Language of Poetry and Advertising
• Note: 1,0 (A)
• Auteur: Hanno Frey (Auteur)
• Année de publication: 2001
• Pages: 8
• N° de catalogue: V16524
• ISBN (ebook): 9783638213547
• Langue: anglais
• mots-clé: Wires, Philip, Larkin), Seminar, Language, Poetry, Advertising