Introduction of the Poem:
“Poetry of Departures” is one of Larkin's most memorable poems. It recommends the virtues of caution in a voice which is robustly comic and confident. This poem contrasts a wild, romantic impulse with a conservative, cautious one. The poet imaginatively identifies himself with another figure who has ‘chucked up everything / And just cleared off’, and who thus achieves retrospective glory.
This poem is an extract from the volume of the poems entitled “The Less Deceived.” Like many of Larkin's other poems, Poetry of Departures contains a kind of debate between two opposed points of view. The poem is more intellectual than emotional. This poem is written in colloquial style. Another feature of this poem is its anti - heroic and anti - romantic stance.
Summary of the Poem:
Sometimes a news is heard from some rumour monger that a certain man, after discarding everything, has just gone away. It is fact that such kind of news spreads quickly from one person to another person. When this news finally comes to us, it has already becomes stale. Wherever this news spreads, it gets approval of the action of that man who has renounced every possession of his and simply gone away (i.e., he has gone away with empty hands). Whosoever hears that man's action, describes it as daring and uplifting one. The poet too approves of that kind of action on the part of a man.
The poet also consents such an action taken by a certain man. He also approves the opinion of other people in this matter. The poet says that every one of us hates staying in houses for a long time. The poet himself does not like to stay in his room. He hates all the things (referred as rubbish) he has collected and arranged in his room with special care. The things which the poet calls rubbish; include good books and a good bed to sleep in. He hates this room even though he is leading an orderly kind of life here.
When the poet hears that a certain man has gone away after leaving his family, relatives and other possessions, he is thrilled at the action of that man. The poet feels as thrilled on hearing the news of someone's going away after renouncement of everything as he would feel when a woman undressing herself is described by someone. He feels as excited on hearing that news about someone's departing as he will feel when someone calls him a bastard and speaks in a highly offensive manner to him. On hearing the news of someone's departure from home, the poet also desires to follow that fellow. But when this idea comes in his mind, he becomes all the more encouraged to stay on where he is, and to continue doing the same work. Yet the poet desires to depart from a static life of home.
Yet the poet wants to go away from home and wander freely over the roads on which nuts lie scattered. The poet is prepared to give up his house and escape in the forecastle of a ship so that the ship's crew may not notice him. In other words, he would become a wanderer on the roads, or a sailor on a ship, in order to get rid of his life at home which was detestable for him. Later on he gives up or drops such an idea because he thinks that such a step will be artificial, and that it seems to be a retrogressive step. He thinks to give up his present routine life of collecting books, chinaware, and other articles and wants to lead this perfect routine of life even though perfection of this kind is something to be condemned. He would continue to lead this routine life because giving up this kind of life in favour of a life of travel and adventure seems to him to be something unnatural and retrograde.
Critical Appreciation of the Poem:
Introduction:
Poetry of Departures is one of Larkin's most memorable poems. It recommends the virtues of caution in a voice which is robustly comic and confident. This poem contrasts a wild romantic impulse. This poem is an extract from the volume of the poems entitled The Less Deceived. This poem contains a kind of debate between two opposed points of view. This poem is more intellectual than emotional.
Development of Thoughts:
In this poem Larkin is found standing for the ‘status quo’. The tone is conversational. A modern officer - worker's life is described — with an autobiographical touch. It is sober and industrious life. In contrast to this life in perfect order, there are many people in an industrial society, even those who have some sort of security and good earnings, who dream of getting away from it all and living more adventurously. The desire to break the monotony of routine life is evident here.
In the second stanza, Larkin shares the feelings of restlessness and the cravings for rootlessness. In the third stanza, he asserts that as long as this seems a possibility— this escape to rootlessness — and other people do it or are capable of doing it, he is not interested in it, because it is only a sort of showing - off that he too can do it. There is no spontaneity in it. So, he stays in his office. But he is excited when people talk of such decisive actions or when he meets such situations in fiction or films.
The last stanza gives examples of alternative lives — living as a tramp, a gypsy or as a sailor. It is just as priggish, just as artificial Larkin says, to try to create a perfect life for oneself like collecting books or chinaware and make one's surroundings comfortable. There is both humour and irony in the contrasting pictures of the unshaven, romantic, run away sailor and the clean – shaven, hypocritical, white collar worker. But in the ultimate analysis what real choice is there between this, placidity and adventure? Hence, Larkin's option for the ‘status quo’, for a life as it is lived at the moment.
Form and Style:
The poem is written in Larkin's characteristic colloquial style. The very opening line is an example of that kind of style: “Sometimes you hear”, etc. Then the line “And they are right, I think”, also has the same colloquial quality. In fact, the whole of this poem is written in that conversational style. The poem shows Larkin's laconic manner of expressing himself. Larkin's poetry represents a model of compression and condensation. The fewest possible words are used by him to express an idea, and sometimes even the syntax is sacrificed for the sake of economy. As in many other poems, here too the stanza is not observed as a separate unit in a poem. For example, the last line of the second stanza runs into the first line of the next stanza; and the same thing happens in the case of the third stanza or at the end of the third stanza to mark these stanzas off from what follows. This is certainly an ‘audacious’ way of writing like the ‘audacious’ action of the man who ‘chuks up’ everything and ‘just clears off’.
Theme of the Poem:
The poem does not begin with any definite resolve in the author's mind. The poet seems to be considering, and discussing with himself, the action of people who simply throw up everything and go away to lead a life of travel and adventure without having any particular goal in mind.
A Kind of Debate:
Like many of Larkin's other poems, Poetry of Departures contains a kind of debate between two opposed points of view. At first, the idea of leaving home and taking to a life of travel and adventure seems very attractive and tempting to the poet, But at the end the poet reaches the conclusion that such a seemingly attractive kind of life would have something artificial about it and would seem to be a step in the wrong direction. Thus, the poet weighs the pros and cons of ‘chucking up’ everything and ‘just clearing off’.
The Chief Feature, Anti - Hero and Anti - Romantic Stance:
Another chief feature of this poem is its anti - heroic and anti - romantic stance. If the poet had come to the firm conclusion that a life of travel and adventure would be preferable to the stationary and stagnant life at home, we would have said that Larkin is a romantic poet with a heroic attitude towards life. But that does not happen. Leaving home and embarking on aimless travelling or voyaging seems to him “a deliberate step backwards”.
Moral of the Poem:
Many of Larkin's poems carefully weighing a desire for escape and release with a dutiful commitment to the status quo, and the most obvious example of this kind of thing is to be fauna in Poetry of Departures:
“Sometimes you hear, fifth - hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off.
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying.
Elemental move.”
Creating a Linguistic Structure:
A casual 'fifth - hand' report of the opening lines and the shift from ‘you’ and ‘he’ to ‘I’ and ‘we’ in second stanza create a linguistic structure that is inter - personal . It brings into collision a range of speech - forms and their associated social attitudes.
The Poet's Seeing the Universal Need:
Larkin sees the universal need “to get away from it all” as romantic escapism and rejects it with an amiable irony which makes it negative conclusion seem curiously positive. The negative conclusion is that to chuck up everything would at once create the object of recreating the same ‘reprehensibly perfect’ life - style.
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