The Whitsun Weddings

The Whitsun Weddings poems

The poem 'The Whitsun Weddings' was published in a collection of the same title in 1964. The collection and especially its title poem received public and critical acclaim after its publication. One year after Larkin published his collection, he was awarded the prestigious Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. It was also named 'one of the best poems of our time' by the Times Literary Supplement.¹

Alongside the famous titular poem, the collection contains other well-known and widely beloved poems such as 'Mr Bleaney', 'Wild Oats', 'MCMXIV', and 'An Arundel Tomb'.

'The Whitsun Weddings' summary

In 'The Whitsun Weddings' the speaker describes a train journey they took from Hull that ended in London. The poem 'The Whitsun Weddings' spans 8 stanzas and 70 lines in total. Let's take a look at what happens in each.

In the first stanza (lines 1–9), the speaker introduces a journey they went on 'That Whitsun', referring to Pentecost, a Christian holiday on the seventh Sunday after Easter. The speaker describes the journey using the past tense throughout the poem. The train was late, almost empty, hot inside, and in no rush. From this point onwards, the speaker describes the train and themselves with the collective 'we' as they chugged onwards through the Lincolnshire waterscape and countryside

In the second stanza (lines 10–19), the train headed southwards, continuing inland through the heat. The speaker spotted various objects and places through the window: farms, cattle, polluted canals, a hothouse (or greenhouse), hedges, towns, and a vast vehicle scrapyard. The speaker also describes the changing smells, from grass to the strong scent of the seat fabric in the train carriage.

In the third stanza (lines 11–20), the speaker describes how they slowly began to notice the weddings at each station. Blinded by the bright sunlight, the speaker had mistaken loud noises for the luggage porters playing around. However, they soon became aware of the brides on the platform, posing in cheap imitations of fashion as they watched the train pass them by.

In the fourth stanza (lines 21–30), the brides waving the train goodbye arrested the speaker's attention. The next time the speaker saw the brides, they paid more attention to the wedding parties and noticed rough-looking fathers, overweight mothers, rude uncles, and superficial accessories.

In the fifth stanza (lines 31–40), the colours of these clothes and accessories marked the girls in the wedding parties from the others. The speaker noticed that the weddings were coming to an end, and newlyweds were entering the train. As the train begins to move, the speaker watched the facial expressions of children and fathers on the platform.

In the sixth stanza (lines 41–50), the speaker also noticed the facial expressions of the women and girls. Like those of the fathers, their expressions and body language are interpreted in ambiguous ways. When the train continued to London, the speaker describes the whole train as being finally free but heavy with the experiences of the day. The speaker then looked out at the increasingly industrial landscape of the city's outskirts for the rest of the 50-minute journey.

In the seventh stanza (lines 51–60), the speaker describes this part of the journey as being a pause for relief after so many marriages happened that day. As the other passengers looked out at the urban landscape, they didn't think about how they and the other passengers were both connected yet separate. Although they may never meet again, they had all experienced the same thing during this short stretch of the journey. The speaker thought about the sprawl of London as a field of wheat.

In the eighth and final stanza (lines 61–70), the train is speeding across the last stretch of its journey which was, the speaker notes, accompanied by a sense of finality and change. As the journey and the poem come to a close, a tone of pessimism seems to take over.

Fig. 2 - The speaker describes a train journey they took from Hull to London.

'The Whitsun Weddings' themes

As made clear from the title of the poem, marriage as well as changing society form the key themes in the poem.

Throughout the poem, Larking presents a complexly cynical view of marriage which is typical of many of his works. This cynicism could be related to the context of the time in which the poem was written and published.

The 1960s was a decade of protest and change; the evolving civil rights and sexual liberation movements meant related topics that had been silenced were becoming increasingly discussed. As a result, more and more people began to question the concept of marriage as the bastion of accepted social roles surrounding family, sex, and gender.

Larkin's attitudes towards marriage may have also been influenced by his personal relationship with it over the course of his life. This is made clear in his poems as well as his private writings, as he wrote in his pocket diary:

'The Whitsun Weddings' rhyme scheme

'The Whitsun Weddings' follows an ABABCDECDE rhyme scheme, a rhyme scheme that is similar to the one used in the odes written by John Keats (1795–1821), who was a famous Romantic poet.

Funnily enough, however, Larkin was part of a group of writers called 'The Movement' who reacted against the revival of Romanticism in the 20th century, favouring more 'down to earth' poetry that was more accessible to a wider readership. This contradiction adds to the satirical tone of Larkin's writing in 'The Whitsun Weddings'.

'The Whitsun Weddings' analysis

The poem uses many literary devices to explore the themes of marriage and changing society, including imagery, enjambment, and juxtaposition. Let's take a look at each one in detail.

Imagery and enjambment

Images that appeal to the senses, especially sight, smell, and hearing, are scattered throughout the poem, bringing the speaker's journey and the things they pass on the way to life.

At first, the imagery is dominated by descriptions of the speaker's experience of the train and the world through their window. However, unlike Romantic poetry, the imagery of the landscape is not idealised or romanticised as the speaker seems to just list the smells and visuals they notice, whether pleasant or unpleasant, as they pass them:

Enjambment is also used to reflect the speaker's free associations and trail of thoughts, contrasting the poem with Romantic poetry which is often concerned with grand emotions and spiritual experiences.

Juxtaposition

By building up this ordinary scene, the poem creates a foundation for the satirical portrayal of marriage created through juxtaposition.

From the third stanza, the speaker's unremarkable, unhurried, and peaceful journey is interrupted by the loud and garish wedding parties that swarm the platforms with loud and unpleasant people, accessories, and colours (lines 39; 46–50). As a result, the poem satirises the grand meaning society places on marriages and attempts to reflect this grandeur by adding a sense of luxury to the celebrations.

This contrast between the expectations and reality of marriage and weddings is also reflected in the ambiguous facial expressions of the passengers who enter the trains:

By juxtaposing positive phrases ('success so huge' and 'happy') with negative ones ('wholly farcical' and 'funeral'), the poem draws attention to the reality of marriage as a mixture of both good, bad, and as unspectacular and unromantic as the Odeon cinema and cooling tower that zoom past.

¹ Jamie Doward. 'Larkin's Whitsun Weddings celebrated with 50th-anniversary train ride'. The Guardian. 2014.

² Andrew Green. The Whitsun Weddings: Philip Larkin. Edited by Marian Cox. Philip Allan Updates. 2005.