The Whitsun Weddings is a poem by British poet Philip Larkin, first published in his 1963 collection. The poem recounts the speaker’s train journey on Whitsun, or Whit Sunday, the seventh Sunday after Easter (Pentecost), deep into spring when people often marry. This may explain why Larkin saw so many wedding parties during an actual train ride in 1955.
Larkin’s first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter. He came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of The Whitsun Weddings. The poem bears formal and thematic resemblances to “Church Going.”
Larkin was born in Coventry in 1922 and educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry, and St Johns College, Oxford. He wrote two novels, Jill and A Girl in Winter, and two books of collected journalism: All What Jazz: A Record Diary, and High Windows.
The Whitsun Weddings is one of the best-known poems by Larkin, written and rewritten and finally published in 1964. The poem explores the deterioration of a long-term relationship through lack of communication and misinterpretation of the cause.
The Whitsun Weddings is a collection of 32 poems by Philip Larkin, first published by Faber in the United Kingdom on 28 February 1964. Larkin remains England’s best-loved poet, evoking his native land and touching readers from the most sophisticated to the most sophisticated.
📹 Barton’s Britain: The Whitsun Weddings
Laura Barton and Felix Clay retrace the train journey that inspired the poet Philip Larkin to write The Whitsun Weddings.
What is the origin of Whitsun?
Whit Monday gets its English name from Whitsunday, an English name for Pentecost, one of the three baptismal seasons. The origin of the name Whit Sunday is generally attributed to the white garments formerly worn by those newly baptized on this feast.1.
Observanceedit. Pentecost is always on a Sunday and is therefore usually a non-working day. That said, the Monday after Pentecost is a public holiday in Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Austria, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Benin, The British Virgin Islands, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominica, France, Gabon, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Hungary, Iceland, Ivory Coast, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Monaco, Montserrat, The Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Spain, Switzerland, Togo and Ukraine. In many of these countries, Whit Monday is known as the second day of Pentecost or the second Whitsun.
In France, it became a work day for many workers from 2005 to 2007. This was to raise extra funds following the governments lack of preparation for a summertime heat wave, which led to a shortage of proper health care for the elderly.2 It continues to be a worked public holiday in France.3 In Liechtenstein, Whit Monday is considered to be a favorite holiday, much like Christmas in many other countries. In Germany, Whit Monday (German: Pfingstmontag) is a Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics.4 It is celebrated in South Tyrol, and for its capital city Bolzano it replaces the holiday of the local patron saint celebrated elsewhere in Italy.
When was Whitsun weddings written?
The Whitsun Weddings is a collection of 32 poems by Philip Larkin. It was first published by Faber in the United Kingdom on 28 February 1964. It was a commercial success, by the standards of poetry publication, with the first 4,000 copies being sold within two months. A United States edition appeared some seven months later.
It contains many of Larkins best known poems, such as The Whitsun Weddings, Days, Mr Bleaney, MCMXIV, and An Arundel Tomb.
- Poemsedit. Here
- Mr Bleaney
- Nothing To Be Said
- Love Songs in Age
- Naturally the Foundation will Bear Your Expenses
- Broadcast
- Faith Healing
- For Sidney Bechet
- Home is so Sad
- Toads Revisited
- Water
- The Whitsun Weddings
- Selfs the Man
- Take One Home for the Kiddies
- Days
- MCMXIV
- Talking in Bed
- The Large Cool Store
- A Study of Reading Habits
- As Bad as a Mile
- Ambulances; The Importance of Elsewhere; Sunny Prestatyn; First Sight; Dockery and Son; Ignorance; Reference Back; Wild Oats; Essential Beauty; Send No Money; Afternoons; An Arundel Tomb
What is the theme of the poem the wedding?
“Wedding Poem” appears in the poet Ross Gays award-winning collection, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. The poem is an epithalamion, a lyric poem written and performed to celebrate a marriage, often read at a wedding ceremony. “Wedding Poem” tells the story of the speakers encounter with a goldfinch and a sunflower. The poet uses the observation as a metaphor for partnership and romantic love. The speaker describes the bird and the flower in an act of love in which one participant gains nourishment and pleasure from the other. The moment represents an intimate joy that is public, raucous, and entirely commonplace. Such moments inspire happiness, the speaker suggests, and are readily available in everyday life, if people notice them. The poem sits in the middle of Gays published body of work to date, alongside other work that observes and celebrates cycles of growth in the natural world and the quotidian potential for human joy.
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry:Against Which;Bringing the Shovel Down;Be Holding;andCatalog of Unabashed Gratitude which won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He is also the author of The Book of Delights, a collection of essays.
Rossis also the co-author, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, of the chapbook Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil. He co-authored, with Rosechard Wehrenberg, the chapbook, River.He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazineSome Call it Ballin,as well as an editor withthe chapbook pressesQ AvenueandLedge Mule Press.
What is the poem written to celebrate a wedding called?
An epithalamium is a special poem written in honor of a marriage. Many epithalamiums are addressed to brides on their wedding days.
The poetic form called an epithalamium started in ancient Greece as a song that was sung to the bride and groom on their wedding night by a group of children. Greek and Roman poets, including the poet Sappho, developed the epithalamium, in some cases celebrating specific marriages, and the 16th century English poet Edmund Spenser wrote Epithalamium for his own bride. The word means bridal song, epithalamion in Greek, from epi, upon, and thalamos, bridal chamber.
Was Philip Larkin ever married?
In 1964, Larkin confirmed his reputation as a major poet with the publication of The Whitsun Weddings, and again in 1974 with High Windows: collections whose searing, often mocking, wit does not conceal the poets dark vision and underlying obsession with universal themes of mortality, love, and human solitude. Deeply anti-social and a great lover and published critic of American jazz, Larkin never married and worked as a librarian in the provincial city of Hull, where he died on December 2, 1985.
Why is Philip Larkin called a movement poet?
Philip Larkin is generally known as a Movement poet. The term Movement was attached to a particular group of poets and writers of whom Larkin was the most prominent figure in maintaining the characteristics of them. He himself was very much conscious about the strict norms of their group.
What is the criticism of The Whitsun Weddings?
The Whitsun Weddings makes frequent reference to what the speaker can see out of his train window as he heads to London. The speakers glimpses of urban and industrial life symbolize both waste and the human potential for renewal.
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Downloadthis entire guide to “The Whitsun Weddings” as a printable PDF.Downloadthis LitChart! (PDF)
What is the meaning of the poem The Whitsun Weddings?
- The Whitsun Weddings – Key takeaways. The Whitsun Weddings was written by Philip Larkin and published in a collection of the same title in 1964.
- The Whitsun Weddings is a poem that shines a light on the superficiality of marriage and marriage ceremonies.
- Over the course of eight stanzas, the speaker describes a train journey they took from Hull to London.
- The Whitsun Weddings follows an ABABCDECDE rhyme scheme, a rhyme scheme that is similar to the one used in the odes written by the Romantic poet John Keats (1795–1821).
- The poem uses many literary devices to explore the themes of marriage and changing society, including imagery, enjambment, and juxtaposition.
1 Jamie Doward. Larkins Whitsun Weddings celebrated with 50th-anniversary train ride. The Guardian. 2014.
2 Andrew Green. The Whitsun Weddings: Philip Larkin. Edited by Marian Cox. Philip Allan Updates. 2005.
How does Larkins view marriage as reflected in The Whitsun Weddings?
Although Larkin is more descriptive about marriages in the Selfs the Man, he has an overall dislike for them because he extends the same attitude in the Whitsun Weddings. Moreover, in both cases, Larkin considers his solitude better than being entangled in a marriage like those he observes.
Which English poet whose collections include The Whitsun Weddings?
Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is one of Englands best-loved poets. His first volume with Faber, The Whitsun Weddings, was published in 1964 and, in its peerless evocation of his native land and its people, is widely considered one of the great poetry collections of the last century. *This centenary edition of Philip Larkin’s much-loved first collection with Faber has been specially designed for Faber Members, recreating the iconic first edition. Available exclusively from faber.co.uk. Join Faber Members, for FREE, to buy. *All orders are sent via Royal Mail and are tracked: choose from standard or premium delivery. In honour of Larkin’s 100th birthday our new collectors’s edition has been exclusively designed and crafted for Faber Members, with reproduced cover artwork based on the original first edition design by Berthold Wolpe and adapted by Anna Morrison.
What is the historical background of Whitsun weddings?
“The Whitsun Weddings” describes the speakers train journey into London on Whitsun Saturday (a date in summer that was once a popular choice for weddings due to certain tax breaks). As it does so, the poem takes an unsentimental look at what it means to be human in light of the unstoppable forward march of time.
📹 “The Whitsun Weddings” by Philip Larkin (read by Tom O’Bedlam)
Weddings as seen from a train journey on Whit Sunday. That Whitsun, I was late getting away: Not till about One-twenty on the …
That Whitsun, I was late getting away:\r A driver’s strike.\r One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday,\r That’s when my chav-infested train – with Mike,\r Who speaks in single syllables – pulled out.\r And ASBO Joe, tattooed like girlfriend ‘Chelle,\r Digs deep into his bag and pulls a beer…\r \r Yup, things have changed, though the chavs at least are “grinning and pomaded.”\r \r
The device of shortening a line is called catalexis. Some modern poetry is a typographical art without audible qualities, but that started about a century ago. Originally poetry was an audible artform, and the purpose in dividing it into lines was to show how it might sound when read aloud – where to expect rhyme, for instance. Each line had a predictable number of syllables and stress-pattern. Free Verse is easy to write but it’s less memorable. It’s like a song without a tune.
@sum1otosh1I agree about the train journey being a metaphor but for marriage not mortality. People often do get married on Whit Sunday: he was reporting something that happened to him. The things you say about Larkin’s preoccupations are true but I don’t see them in this poem – no “dark tunnel”, for instance.\r \r My own observation is that Larkin’s obsession with illness and death is not uncommon in those who do not have anybody that they care about more than they care about themselves.
There are some thoughtful comments here, so I’ll add my own.This is more like the uncomfortable dissection of a cliche, to me. Almost all poems inevitably have something to do with mortality and love, especially in the case of Larkin, where marriage was a nauseating landmark of being alive. Marriage seems like tedium, packaged and sent out like everything else. His poem, ‘Afternoons’ would be the sequel to this, IMHO. He’s acute and detached, but sad about it. Marriage is the ‘Happy Funeral’.
This is for anyone, but still a serious question: why does Larkin have the second line of each stanza shorter when (at least in the poets own readings of the poem) he doesn’t add any particular pauses after those lines? Would it be acceptable to suggest Larkin intended more of a visual effect of the shape of the poem than an audial effect? Even though his poetry is, obviously, designed to be heard and not simply read? What do other people think about this?