Terrible Angels

Themes: war and the effect it has on people

Links to: Larkin's MCMXIV

title is a paradox/oxymoron in itself

"horses to bolt and flocks of meat-snatching birds to rise" - a cycle - vultures -> pick at the dead - violent imagery

First stanza - shows how we view war as heroic, a tribute to their country, "his war medals, their pretty coloured ribbons" - then the second stanza shows us what war is really like from a war veteran's perspective

"When they spoke it was the silence of gas" - sibilance - gas was a silent killer - violent/deadly

"when they sang it was shrapnel striking helmet" - sibilance - whatever they did something bad happened - violent imagery

"finally, soldiers' prayers and soldiers' screams" - "finally" - their death was inevitable/ bound to happen - build up to their deaths - contrast of two different deaths - religious and violent

"thrilled the cold angels to steal the muskets of the dead" - angels wouldn't usually be "thrilled" by death - "cold angels" - paradox/oxymoron - death - "steal" - crime - angels are seen as innocent and pure - still even in death they are trying to fight, to win

"to become stealthily visible" - paradox/oxymoron - stealing the dead's muskets makes them "stealthily visible" - careful but wants them to be seen?

"bold and bloodthirsty" - alliteration - animalistic qualities have arose in their death - lost morale - no longer civilised - violent imagery

"true facsimiles of men" - "facsimiles" -> exact copy - this is what they were like when they were alive but when they died and became angels this has awakened their "bloodthirsty" nature that was already within them - because they're now invisible they don't have to hide that side of themselves

Last stanza - he come back from war injured and now is trapped in his home - reliving what he saw and what he went through - seeing it repeatedly over and over again - war has left him weak and unhealthy - he remembers more about it as he keeps seeing it

In The Theatre

Recounting a true story

the patient was still awake while the doctor was searching in his brain for a tumour/growth

"small voices, small lies" - making everything else seem insignificant - he's too a lie, he's not "fine"

"blink again and again" - every time he blinks he feels pain because of what Dr Lambert Rogers is doing to him only under general anaesthesia for brain surgery

"rash as blind's man" - doctor can't see what he's touching in his brain - violent language - he can't see the effects of what he's doing to the patient - he can only see "inside his soft brain"

"If items of horror can make a man laugh then laugh at this" - "horror" connotes violence and being terrified - if a man laughs at something horrible then this is another level of horror

irregular rhyme scheme could relate to the patient's in-and-out consciousness or the irregularity of the procedure he is undergoing

"ticking its own wild time" - under so much pressure - frantic - feeling so much pain

"more brain mashed" - violent - constantly played with - his brain being poked/pushed about

doctor is "desperate" - its already been an hour - he really wants to find the growth/mass

"probe's braille path" - broiled is something blind people use to read - the doctor is using his brain as path for his probe to find the tumour but he can't see - going in 'blind'

the doctor is in a rush and "thinking 'Christ!' Two more on the list" - he's been trying to fin this tumour for an hour and he has two ore patients to operate on after this

"the cracked record in the brain" - the patient has had enough - he can't take the pain of what the doctor's doing anymore

he says "leave my should alone" in a "ventriloquist voice" - he can't physically speak it because he's in so much pain so he's saying it to himself in his mind

"patient's dummy eyes" - could suggest a ventriloquist dummy or that the doctor is treating him as his own personal dummy to experiment on

"the patient's eyes too wide" - doctor's gone too far - he feels so much pain its unbearable - serious as the doctor is "shocked" by this

"nurses, students, sister petrified" - viewing gallery - loads of people are watching the horrible surgery - "petrified" - strong violent imagery - shocking

"that voice so arctic" - his blood turning cold - his body is shutting down - he's loosing his life - "that cry so odd" - he doesn't recognise himself anymore - no longer himself - dying

"the words began to blur and slow" - he's slowing dying/fading away - "leave my soul alone" repeated many times shows its importance to him and how the patient doesn't want the doctor to keep doing this to him that his soul breaks - wants his soul to remain intact - he needs it in order to go to heaven - religious imagery

"And silence matched the silence under snow" - he's finally gone after all he went through - his pain is over - "snow" connotes purity, innocence, angelic, heavenly - everything is clear now - he still has is soul - in heaven?

The Boasts of Hywell ab Owain Gwynedd

Religious imagery - "I praise the Lord", "dry old hymns"

"Sunday, skilled in zealous verse" - sibilance

"her" being on it's own line emphasises her importance to him

describes her using fruits - "my peach of a woman", "rosy apple skin" - sweet, perfect

"me vegetarien diet" - vegetarians have everything but meat - they have everything but marriage - not keeping their relationship/love a secret

he's always trying to impress her - "dry old hymns I steal to please her", "I kneel to ease her"

"sweet riot" - paradox/oxymoron - he knows it's wrong but it feels right

Final Stanza - he can't control himself or his feelings for her

"efflorescence" - their love blooming/growing stronger

"let her name be secret for her husband's sake" - repetition of "her" here emphasis that she is the one who is married - they're having an affair?

"be sure my busy tongue keeps quiet" - he wants it to remain a secret but he has such strong feelings for her

The Malham Bird

first section in the past
"(For Joan)" - his wife

"that long summer a clarity of marvels" - even though he's experienced something life changing "no morning news announced the great world had been reinvented" - his life has changed but no-one knows it

"more than together" - they're just together because of their love it transcends that


now into the present
"three grandchildren later"

comparing his wife to the "malham of eden" - the only bird that was allowed to stay in Eden - symbol of pure goodness - the other birds "pecked the forbidden fruit"- she is a paragon of good

"lonely immortal forever winging over the banished gardens of Paradise" - important and sad final image - we think of her as this good peaceful but alone

"the tame seagull" and the "friendly gull" could also be compared to her too

means of the sea - the sea is endless and his love for her is endless and will last forever

A Figure of 8

a criticism of the education system

as a child he felt like he was in a prison "jail" and when he left the classroom he's "free"

his imagination is contained in the classroom and then we see the contrast when he leaves the classroom as his imagination runs wild - the power of imagination in a child

in his imagination he "flies to Africa" and gets involved in a battle, someone "bombed the park" and he sees "a spaceship" - this occurs on his walk home from school - turns ordinary objects into these amazing imaginative things

"fuck winnie the pooh" - the classroom isn't allowing his imagination to soar as it should and his imagination is on fined to childish things


Could link to Larkin's A Study of Reading Habits 

A Wall

interesting because the title becomes part of the first line

even though we don't understand things sometimes like why a wall is randomly there -  "begins in no reason ends no place" it can still be "beautiful" - in this way he could either be talking about life or religion

quite a philosophical poem - how life can be "seaming unremarkable" - it can be beautiful and our faith is an amazing thing

The Death of Aunt Alice

Juxtaposing her vivid, wild imagination of her life with a very orderly contained funeral service

"sparrows became vampires"  she had a vivid imagination - used to make things up

dreamt up some amazing scenarios - "fords on the M4 upside down"

she died - her funeral didn't reflect her personality - death can't capture a person's personality

contrast between her wild imagination and the finality of her death - she's not here anymore - gone forever

Abse imagines her in heaven telling more "tall stories" to saints in heaven

religion is the save and grace of the poem - through a belief in God he finds solace in his aunt's death