I have to write a thesis this year and I'm not so experienced. So, I need a hand.
The thesis I'd like to write should be about Philip Larkin because it's one of the best poets for me but I don't know what the topic should be about. It may be about Schopenhauer's ideas on death vs Larkin's poems(High Windows, Ambulances, Wants, This be the Verse) or the theme of mortality and pessimism in those poems.
Or maybe a Marxist criticism on "Money" by Larkin?
>inb4 sjw
Michael Taylor
Hope there's someone experienced who is interested in poetry ;_;
Luke Johnson
I think you should do your own homework bro
Ask your teacher for help, he's there for a reason
Landon Hernandez
It's summertime, you know?
Brandon Torres
You should still email with them, I'm sure they check at least once a week. I would hope for you to do the Schopenhauer one, I have never made that connection. I think the pessimism aspect is studied pretty extensively. Good luck.
Chase Gray
Thanks for your good wishes, but the professor doesn't have an e-mail. So, I want to get some advice here as much as I can.
Samuel Baker
Great idea OP, big Larkin fan here.
Why not do a thesis about Larkin's promotion of mundanity?
I've always appreciated Larkin because he recognizes the impulses to be a hedonist ("she's wearing a diaphragm, he's fucking her" etc) and to quit his job and live a more adventurous life ("Poetry of Departures") yet in the end he settles for and subtly vaolrizes the "reprehensible perfect" life of post-War britain. There's an argument to be made that this is the consequence of a dying empire (no potential to move abroad and live more exotically), a changing class dynamic (the ability to live more comfortable and the trappings of said comfort) or just the stoic acknowledgement that in order for society to function it takes countless frustrated and overlooked individuals like himself to repress their longing and desire.
Hudson Cook
Also, if this is of interest why not make an attempt to explore Larkin's work in the context of the Angry Young Men that took place in the 50s and 60s?
He lived in Hull and covers a great many themes people like John Osborne, Alan Sillitoe etc. He was even good friends with Kingsley Amis who is perhaps the most famous member of that group.
Either way I recommend reading a book called The Angry Decade by Kenneth Allsop, it's a fantastic work of critical theory about British literature in the 50s and 60s.
Xavier Robinson
I'm impressed of what you've written but now I'm watching it and should finish soon. Thanks, I'll be back ;_; really thank you.
I've seen Love and Death in Hull and like it a lot.
Which country are you from by the way?
Noah Parker
I've thought of doing it about mundanity, but I think it's already done by so many people. It can be done by analyzing his poems in terms of mundanity and futility.
>no potential to move abroad Today I've learned he wanted to live in Hull until the end of his life, and looked for nowhere to live or get amused. It can be a good example as you said.
By the way, I wanted to analyze his poems in the light of existentialism but I think it'd be easier and full of repetitions. I'll give a chance if you say "it's okay."
I've saved what you've written regarding Angry Young Men and will read those books as soon as possible. Thank you.
I think you've realised I'm a non-native English speaker cause I speak it really bad. I live in Turkey and want to do a master's degree here.
Camden Wright
After reading something about Angry Young Men, I've thought of writing it about "from The Movement to Angry Young Men" and it can enable me to scrutinize the transition of Larkin's writing if there's something like that ;_;
Nicholas Anderson
bump for just general ideas on essays, papers, thesis, etc.
Alexander Bell
Thanks for the bump.
Dominic Howard
You are welcome for that bump earlier
Aiden Ramirez
Interesting idea.
Hudson Morris
>the professor doesn't have an e-mail Literally wut?
Blake Sullivan
What the fuck is The Movement?
Just write a thesis called "Angry Old Man: Philip Larkin's relationship with 1950s British fiction"
Here is a great quotation from Angry Decade that defines what exactly made an Angry Young Man:
>""irreverence, stridency, impatience with tradition, vigour, vulgarity, sulky resentment against the cultivated and a hard-boiled muscling-in on culture, […] self-pity, deliberate disengagement from politics, fascist ambitions, schizophrenia, rude dislike of anything phoney or fey, […] a general intellectual nihilism, honesty, a neurotic discontent and a defeated, reconciled acquiescence that is the last flimsy shelter against complete despondency""