Poetry

Question 1

Compare and contrast subject

Answer 1

Wild oats:

• about 2 girls
• subject is misguided young love
• marriage / engagements
• tragedy & regret

IAVB:

• burnt a girl (to catch attention?)
• marriage/engagements alluded in symbolism
• pain, hurt and regret

Question 2

Contrast the context of the poems (8)

Answer 2

Wild Oats:
- Larkin never married
- young relationship (he was 20 and with a 16 year old)
- never completely commits
- autobiographical approach
- his story is complicated by more than one person being in his life
IAVB:
- worked as a prison guard and uses their stories
- part of a larger anthology
- not his story (adopts a persona)

Question 3

Contrast the deeper themes of the poems (7)(6)

Answer 3

Wild Oats :

• Both confessional
• Both about approaching relationships in an inappropriate manner
• Both have feelings of failure from their relationships
• Unfaithful emotionally
• guilt to what he contributed to his relationship ?
• More ambiguous on what he did
• lack of care for girl. Just takes is as an experience rather than a regret

IAVB :

• Guilt?
• Love
• About relationships built on trust and how he betrayed that
• more direct and physical outcome, clear what he did
• Both have self awareness somewhat
• did they learn from this ?

Question 4

Contrast the titles of the poems

Answer 4

Wild Oats:
- Play on words of the idiom “sow your wild Oats” which encourages people to be promiscuous and wild before settling into maturity.
- this is ironic because Larkin regrets not sowing his wild Oats with the bosomy English rose
- hints at regret from childhood
- selfishness in that he regrets not bettering his situation with the English rose instead of regretting how he played with the emotions of the girl in specs
IAVB:
- all is focused upon how bothered (or not) he is about what he did
- This is selfish either way
- This is about what he did do