THE TREES
THEME
DEATH TIME NATURE
LANGUAGE - IMAGERY
"unresting castles thresh/in full grown thickness" CASTLES = crown (top) of the tree? Majestic? The SIBILANCE (repetition of S sounds) is ONOMATOPOEIC and picks up again in last line where the REPITITION mirrors the message start again, and again, and again
LANGUAGE - Similie
A simile is used to add a touch of mystery... The leaves on the tress are "Like something almost being said" as if the leaves were capable of communication, or articulating just what it means to be bursting out into fresh air. Combines "something" and "almost" = vague but SUGGESTS an incompleteness Second stanza it's "written down in rings of grain" the truth is that the leaves DIE, so life and death are bought together
STRUCTURE
Formal Structure 3 x END stopped RHYMING QUATRAINS The rhyme scheme is ABBA CDDC EFFE and all are full rhymes, sounding the same: leaf/grief. This helps enclose the sense and echoes the naturally occurring cycles in life. Tight ABBA rhyme scheme = neat Iambic tetrameter dominates this short poem. Each line has four stresses, producing a steady, paced rhythm. The trees / are com / ing in / to leaf Like some / thing al / most be / ing said;
VOICE
MEDITATIVE? REFLECTIVE? Edge of UNCERTAINTY - no conclusions or answers are forthcoming
THE POET
Philip Larkin Gloomy, clear-sighted poet IS this a lament on AGING? Ambiguous! The Trees was written in 1967 and published in his book High Windows in 1974. It is one of several poems he wrote about spring and contains elements of sadness and happiness, grief and joy, despondency and hope. So typical of Larkin.
LANGUAGE ALLITERATION / ASSONANCE
Plain language but the IDEAS are subtle The leaves are perhaps an expression of the tree's relief and release from the grip of winter; each leaf is a mini-rebirth, green energy waiting to offer itself to warmth and rain and hidden processes. "Their greenness is a kind of grief" Links 2 contradictory word through ALITERATION (Greeness and Grief) also sound similar (assonance) Greenness = new life, fresh start, fertility Grief = sharp and painful in its brightness, raw vulnerability
TONE
Sometimes CELEBRATORY OTher times MELANCHOLIC (death/grief)
SUBJECT
WATCH THIS http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151201-a-beautiful-animation-of-philip-larkins-the-trees The renewing life cycle of a tree New Leaves, buds, rings of grain that tell the story of its whole life. Observational poem with a kind of folk philosophy behind it, the speaker keenly aware of the profound changes going on and relating them to human mortality. The speaker questions and compares the renewal of the tree to the aging process in humans and concludes that the tree's bursting out in fresh foliage is merely a trick, a pretence. They may bring forth a show of regeneration but inside they're growing old too, and will eventually die, like we humans. Nature can be deceptive; why can't humans put on a face and accept decay, death and probable rebirth? Connections then suggest that trees can tell us how to lead our lives. "they seem to say/Begin afresh, afresh, afresh" BUT how can we when we are doomed to grow OLD? AMBIGUOUS, relates human life to trees but although trees can grow new leaves etc we an't
