Talking in Bed
Beth Kemp | Saturday March 12, 2011
Categories: Courses, A Level, AQA A Level, AQA A Level English Language & Literature A, ELLA4, Poetry, Analysing Poetry, Larkin, Whitsun Weddings
This poem is included as a taught poem in the scheme of work, as it could be used for two different questions. It could also be recommended to more able students for the theme of marriage (Although it doesn’t state that the couple are married, it was relatively unusual for people to live together outside of marriage when the poem was written, so it could be argued that Larkin had a married couple in mind).
The persona describes a situation where two people, who share a bed and are physically in close proximity, are nonetheless finding it increasingly difficult to talk to one another.
Links to Duffy/Plath: isolation (Duffy/Plath), love and romance (Duffy)
Lang-Lit points: rhyme (particularly how this links stanzas 1-3 and separates stanza 4), metaphor and pathetic fallacy, semantic - the word play and precision in the final two lines.
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