MONEY - PHILIP LARKIN
PHILIP LARKIN was the best-loved
poet of his generation in England, and the winner of many academic and literary
awards. His collected Poems appeared posthumously in 1988.
Larkin’s MONEY treats a familiar
subject in a charmingly candid and personal way. He urges us to question the
wisdom of frugal spending in youth. It is hard, says the poet, to resist the
temptation of money, harder to control our desire for creature-comforts.
I yield to the temptation of
money. Metaphorically, the poet imagines that he listens to a siren’s song in
the tinkle of coins, and the rustle of paper money. The rising inflation always
devalues money. And therefore reduces one’s capacity for buying goods and
services. If you are going to buy all unnecessary things one-day you cannot buy
the necessary things.
“By now
they’ve a second house and car and wife:
Clearly money
has something to do with life”
House and car are some ‘goods and
services’ others have in excess when the thrifty person does not even fulfill
his basic physical needs or enjoy social prestige and respect.
‘You can’t put
off being young until you retire,’
There are certain things you can
afford to put off (delay) until you retire. But your body and mind does not
hear you in youth. Further, it makes no sense to have a lot of money when it
hardly tempts you as in youth.
When the poet listens to ‘money
singing’, he is reminded of scenes rich in visual details: the provincial town,
the slums, the canal, the churches. Each has its place in answering to man’s
desire; each exists to prompt man’s desire.
These scenic details prompt both
desire and guilt, the first followed by the second. This quit sad like having
money. Money in hand, one finds one’s longing inevitable as much as guilt that
goes with it.
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