Homage To A Government
(Philip Larkin)
Considering that he was one of our major posts, Philip Larkin's total output of poems was remarkarbly small. (He once said that he was pleased if he managed to write three good poems a year). He was born in Coventry - a city devasted by German bombs in the Second World War-and he went to school there, before studying at Oxfords. He has been placed, as a writer who emerged in the 1950s in 'The Movement'- a name given to a number of 'angry young men' of letters (like Kingsley Amis, John Wain and others). He wrote rather bitter poems that expressed a 'refusal to participate'.
Larkin worked in a number of libraires before becoming the Bibrarian of the University o Hull-and there he stayed for the remainder of his life, a single, rather sad figure, but immensely respected by fellow poets. He wrote two novels, Jill (1946), and A Girl in Winter (1947), but is best known for his (rather few) collections of verse. The Less Deceived, 1955 (published by a small press in Hull), and Whilsun Weddings, 1964, and High Windows, 1974, published by Faber & Faber.
In this poem, written in 1969 the poet speaks about American soldiers in Vietnam; or British soldiers in Northern Ireland (or Cyprus) or elsewhere. It hardly matters who they are or where they are. They are coming home because people are weary of war, and the money has run out, and so has the confidence. Nobody at homes seems to care. Only the poet wonders why the soldiers went in the first place.
Resumos Relacionados
- Vahini
- Passage To India
- Love Is A Dog From Hell
- The Unknown Citizen
- Upon Westminster Bridge
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