Analysis of Best Society
Philip Larkin 1922 (Coventry) – 1985 (Hull)
When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.
Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it's just
A compensating make-believe.
Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on - in short,
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.
Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
Scheme | ABAXCXXC DXDXEXXE FGAGHXXH IXIBXXFX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1110111 1000110 1010111 101001 111111 1100111001 010001001 1111101 11010101 11110011 010101101 1010011 11011101 01111101 01110111 0100101 11010100 1111111 1001001 11111 11111101 101011101 0111011 111101001 10011111 011010111 10010111 110 01111101 010110 11011100 01010111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 977 |
Words | 175 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 198 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 44 |
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