Aubade

E510489

"Aubade" is a bleak, introspective poem by Philip Larkin that confronts the fear of death and the emptiness of modern life.

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Label Occurrences
Aubade canonical 1

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Statements (46)

Predicate Object
instanceOf literaryWork
poem
author Philip Larkin NERFINISHED
contrastsWith conventional romantic aubade
countryOfOrigin United Kingdom
criticalReception considered a major late work of Larkin
widely regarded as one of Philip Larkin's greatest poems
firstPublishedIn The Times Literary Supplement NERFINISHED
form aubade
genre existential poem
lyric poetry
philosophical poem
hasImagery darkness before dawn
empty early-morning streets
hospital and death imagery
includedIn Collected Poems of Philip Larkin NERFINISHED
influencedBy Larkin's atheism
existentialist thought
language English
literaryMovement The Movement NERFINISHED
postwar British poetry
mainTheme emptiness of modern life
existential anxiety
fear of death
isolation
loss of religious faith
mortality
meter iambic pentameter
narrativePerspective first-person
notableFor absence of religious consolation
philosophical meditation on nonexistence
plain, colloquial diction
unflinching depiction of death as annihilation
periodOfComposition mid-1970s
publicationDate 1977
rhymeScheme regular rhyme scheme
setting early morning
stanzaCount 5
stanzaForm 10-line stanzas
subject consciousness of death in everyday life
inability of work, love, or routine to dispel fear of death
modern secular worldview
titleAlludesTo traditional aubade (dawn love song)
tone bleak
introspective
philosophical

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Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.