1) What poetic devices and themes are found in Philip Larkin's

poem titled “The Church Going”?

Answer :
Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
Larkin often writes his poetry with a first-person point of view. This
speaker is often cynical and truthful.
Form and Meter
Larkin often uses traditional aspects of rhyme and meter in his poetry.
For example, in "Church Going", Larkin uses iambic pentameter. Often,
Larkin's style is so conversational it does not seem as though he is
writing in a traditional meter.
Metaphors and Similes
In "High Windows", Larkin uses simile to describe how old traditions
will be "pushed to one side like an outdated combine harvester".
Alliteration and Assonance
In "This Be The Verse", Larkin uses much alliteration, using many words
beginning with the letter F. One example is the line "they fill you with
the faults they had".
Irony
In "This Be The Verse", Larkin explores how parents, who should look
after their children, are ultimately cause harm to their children.
Genre
20th Century Poetry
Setting
Many of Larkin's poems are set in England. They discuss pertinent
issues of 20th century England, including social class, sexuality and
tradition.
Tone
Cynical
Protagonist and Antagonist
Antagonist often include figures of tradition, such as politicians and
parents.
Major Conflict
Conflict in Larkin's poetry is often a result of society and tradition.
Climax
Many of Larkin's poems move from a small, localized idea to a greater
idea. The climax of his poems is usually the realization of this greater
idea.
Foreshadowing
In High Windows, the term "paradise" in the first stanza, foreshadows
the spiritual image at the end of the poem.
Allusions
Larkin's poem "Sad Steps" is an allusion to a poem written by Sir Phillip
Sidney, a sonnet called "Astrophil and Stella."
Metonymy and Synecdoche
In "At Grass", Larkin uses the word "silks" to describe jockeys.
Personification
In "Aubade", Larkin writes that "telephones crouch, getting ready to
ring".
Onomatopoeia
Larkin uses onomatopoeia in the poem "Ambulances": "Brings closer
what is left to come/ And dulls to distance all we are."

Themes
Religion
The primary theme of the poem—clear from its title, "Church Going"—
is religion. The speaker is not a religious person, and he takes a
dismissive, even disdainful, attitude toward religious belief. Clearly, he
sees religion as something quickly becoming obsolete—something
"going," as the title says. Religious belief is going away, fading into the
past. The dying, browning flowers in the church symbolize the dying of
religion. The musty smell of the church also emphasizes this aging,
dying religion. The speaker then imagines what will happen when
"churches fall completely out of use." He accepts this as an inevitability,
wondering wryly whether people will keep a few cathedrals as
museums, with their various ritual objects on display in locked cases.
The use of "chronically" to describe the way people might keep these
cathedrals open adds to the sense that the speaker sees this possibility
as regrettable, but not unrealistic. He is doubtless aware that, after all,
such museums of religious artifacts already exist, and some cathedrals
already have gift shops.

As the poem moves forward, the speaker speculates on the relationship

between religion and superstition. Religious belief, like any long-held
belief, deteriorates into superstition, which then also fades away: "But
superstition, like belief, must die." He notes that as religion fades away,
its original purpose will become increasingly obscure, just as the church
building will likely be overgrown with weeds.

However, in the last few stanzas, he takes a more respectful tone

toward the church and, by extension, religion, noting its important
function. It has held the records of marriage, birth, and death. It has
been a place where people's "compulsions" are elevated to "destinies."
It has been, and may still be, a place of wisdom.

Time and Death

The passage of time is a common theme in Larkin's poetry. "Church
Going" is not the only poem with "Going" in the title. He wrote "Going,"
which also appeared in The Less Deceived, and "Going, Going," which
appeared in his 1974 collection High Windows. Time, loss, aging, and
death often intertwine in Larkin's poetry, as they do in life. Time is a
destructive force on the church in "Church Going", both as the building
physically ages and as religion becomes more irrelevant to modern
sensibilities.

In the first stanza, he notes that the church has a musty odor that has
been brewing "God knows how long." The church is already painfully
old, and getting older with each passing Sunday service. He reads the
lesson from the lectern and pronounces "Here endeth" too loudly. This
"Here endeth," echoing in the empty church, emphasizes the old-
fashioned language of the church and also its literal end. Speculating on
the future of the church, as weeks pass and the weeds and brambles
overgrow the building, also stresses the passage of time. He imagines
churches falling "completely out of use," maintained only to display
artifacts or support superstitions that themselves "must die."

The speaker's mind jumps easily from the decline of the church and the
religion it represents to his own decline, and death, as time passes.
Stanza 6 is characterized by the awareness of death; the last line
suggests that wisdom comes from close proximity to death. The shift
seems appropriate; religious practice and belief include coming to
terms with death.

A Serious Hunger
From the earliest lines of the poem, the speaker has a question—why
does he, a nonreligious person, regularly stop in churches? This church
is "another" church, into which the speaker has ventured. Part of him
feels it is a waste of time: "the place was not worth stopping for." Yet,
even as he thinks this, he admits he "often" stops and always end up
feeling "at a loss." He stops and goes into these churches irrationally
and compulsively, not for any reason he can name.

In the last few stanzas, he begins to put words to the reason for his
compulsion. He notes that the church is a "serious house on serious
earth." It is a place where human compulsions—perhaps even his own
compulsion to visit old churches—are seen as the workings of destiny.
A sense of destiny gives meaning and purpose to human desires and
needs. He is surprised to discover the "hunger to be more serious" in
himself, yet he sees it as a human hunger. Ultimately, confronting this
hunger for seriousness in himself and realizing it is tied to his
compulsion to visit churches is the point of the poem. Despite the
inevitable obsolescence of religion, there is a human hunger for
purpose and meaning behind religion.

2)
Question :Is social awareness and important concern to
Seamus Heaney in his poetry? Justify your answer?
Answer :
While social concerns appear in some of Seamus Heaney’s
poems, such concerns are not as strongly emphasized as they
are in the works of various other poets. Indeed, Heaney has
been criticized for not being more politically engaged and has
had to defend himself against such criticism. If the random
sampling of thirty or so of some of Heaney’s best-know poems
at poemfinder.com is any indication, a surprisingly small
portion of his work seems overtly and emphatically engaged
with social problems or political topics. This is especially
surprising because he is a Catholic from largely-Protestant
Northern Ireland, where political and religious tensions have
often been very great and very violent.

One poem in which social engagement is clearly apparent is

titled “Docker,” which describes a powerfully-built dockworker
whom the speaker notices as the speaker looks around a bar.
The second stanza reads as follows:
That fist would drop a hammer on a Catholic--
Oh yes, that kind of thing could start again;
The only Roman collar he tolerates
Smiles all round his sleek pint of porter.

This stanza obviously alludes to “The Troubles” in Northern

Ireland, in which conflict between Catholics and Protestants
was often violent and bloody. Yet the focus of the rest of the
poem is not political, so that even in one of his most overtly
“social” poems, Heaney is seems far less concerned with social
issues than some other writers – especially Irish writers, such as
Brian Friel – have been.

Seamus Heaney’s poem “Funeral Rites” emphasizes social

awareness, especially in its overt references to the violent
"Troubles” between Catholics and Protestants in Northern
Ireland. Each section, in fact, is strongly social in emphasis. The
first section focuses on family funerals; the second section
focuses on the burial of someone killed in “The Troubles”; the
third section alludes to early mythology and to a burial from
centuries earlier.

In section I, the speaker recalls how, when younger, he began

to act as a man by acting as a pall-bearer at family funerals. He
describes in detail the corpses he viewed, presumably those of
elderly or sickly relatives who had died “natural” deaths, not
deaths caused by violence. This opening section of the poem is
the least overtly “social,” and one of its main purposes is to
contrast with the sections that come later, especially section II.

Section II is the portion of the poem most obviously marked by

social and political and religious awareness. It opens,
paradoxically, by referring to news of “each neighbourly
murder,” a highly ironic phrase that also reminds us that much
of the violence committed in Northern Ireland was committed
by people who often lived in close physical proximity. However,
the murders that disrupt the daily rhythms and routines of life
are partially compensated for by the “ceremony” and
“customary” rhythms of funerals. The funerals described earlier
had been mostly family affairs.