Days, Larkin

Days: Days focuses majorly on philosophy, and how the free mind is challenged with both ‘facts’ and ‘faith’ and how that can disallow people to draw their own opinions. It uses comedy, with the image of “the priest and the doctor… running over the fields,” identifying a satirical outlook which Larkin holds towards people who try and answer his questions.

 Days begins very thoughtfully, becoming almost a monologue of Larkin’s internal thoughts only to be cut off by the image stated above. He asks “What are days for?” and concludes the first stanza with “Where can we live but days?” drawing religious beliefs into it with the idea of death, a theme featured in Larkin’s poetry a great deal.

 All major religions speak of some sort of life after death, whether it may be spiritual in a heaven/hell setting, or being reborn or reincarnated, and Larkin’s general questions about days, almost dozily daydreaming and writing down thoughts which come into his head. The lack of rhymes details this, making this short poem seem almost like a journal entry, personal and unstructured.

 In order to exemplify his sarcasm and irony, stanza 2 begins with “Ah, solving that question,” the tone of relief being a dry one. Larkin proposes that the people who try to solve questions such as “Where can we live but days?” is pointless, and impossible at the very least. We’re presented with a juxtaposition of “the priest and the doctor in their long coats”, highlighting the desperate similarities between science and religion in that it tries to solve everything, and yet the battle that they both go through in order to prove whether faith or facts are more reliable.