MCMXIV

Analysis of MCMXIV by Philip Larkin

Philip Larkin wrote MCMXIV in 1960, it is a nostalgic poem about the English way of life just before the Great War. The title, ‘1914’, written in Roman numerals resembles the carvings on stones of war memorials, linking the reader straight away to the losses and casualties the war took. The poem is written as one long sentence over four, eight lined, stanzas. This gives it a smooth onward flow through the descriptive images in Larkin’s mind. Although Larkin was not alive during the four years of the Great War he is able to look back at life before the war and how it changed afterwards. He focuses on the people, the towns, the importance of money, the countryside and the overall “innocence” of the past. These things are all referred to as history; it is how England used to be, before it was spoilt and ruined by the war.

The first stanza describes people standing in “long uneven lines”, waiting “patiently”. He compares ...