Sad Steps Pushed Into The Dark English Literature Essay

Sad Steps is a poem by twentieth – century writer Philip Larkin in which his reactions against romanticism and modernism are rendered clear by use of elaborate images, intertwined with the rhythm and rhyme schemes of the poem. Critics say that the poem expresses the thoughts of an old man who needs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and is overwhelmed by the shiny moonrays that burst through the curtains into his bedroom. This gives rise to several feelings from his past that make him wonder in pain about the early days of his youth. They also link this poem with Sir Philip Sidney’s “Astrophil and Stella”, and use the imagery of “the moon” as if she were Cupid and the imagery of the “Lozenge of love!” as a reference to romanticism (Edgecombe 494), but this essay aims to take a new path, away from existing analyses. Rhyme and rhythm continue to play a significant role, but the influence of darkness imagery on the old man will be emphasised as will the relevance of what happens when he sees the moon bursting through the clouds and the curtains.

Sad Steps

1 Groping back to bed after a piss A

2 I part thick curtains, and am startled by    B

3 The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness. A

4 Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie    B

5 Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.    B

6 There’s something laughable about this, A

7 The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow    C

8 Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart    D

9 (Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below) C

10 High and preposterous and separate-    D

11 Lozenge of love! Medallion of art! D

12 O wolves of memory! Immensements! No, C

13 One shivers slightly, looking up there. E

14 The hardness and the brightness and the plain    F

15 Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare E

16 Is a reminder of the strength and pain    F

17 Of being young; that it can’t come again,    F

18 But is for others undiminished somewhere. E

(Larkin 2571)

Unlike other famous poems of Philip Larkin, it is remarkable that “Sad Steps” has never been included in one of the four volumes he published during his life (Naremore 333). However, this poem fits perfectly in the main ideas of Philip Larkin, namely that he uses civil grammar, rational syntax and a suburban mood. Apart from these themes, he also uses the isotopies of melancholy, love as a failure and the loneliness of age and death (Norton Anthology 2566). Every single theme and isotopy mentioned can be found in this poem and that is why it is of such importance in his oeuvre. Larking himself says “I don’t want to transcend the commonplace, I love the commonplace life. Everyday things are lovely to me” (Norton Anthology 2566). This quote brings the introduction on Larkin to the first line of the poem this essay focuses on: “Groping back to bed after a piss” (ll. 1).

The opening line of the poem immediately captures the attention of the reader with its low register statement and rough language, which makes clear that the poet wants to react against the romantics because “taking the piss out of” in slang English means “to mock” (Ward 236). The statement thus forces the reader to read on and discover what the poem is about, but the second line of the stanza is again written in a normal register: “I part thick curtains, and am startled by” followed by an enjambment from the second to the third line which emphasises that the narrator is startled by what follows in the third line, namely the moon’s cleanliness. At this point in the poem, the author gives just a mere description of what happens, but the meaning of startle in a sense of “shocked, to take fright” already builds up some suspension (Oxford English Dictionary). The third line ends in a full stop and hereby the first sentence, which gives the impression to the reader to take a breath before reading on.

The second stanza specifies the time of the action: “Four o’clock” (ll. 4), and

“wedge-shadowed gardens” was interpreted by several critics as Cupid’s arrows whereas the moon was depicted as a victim of the god of love (Edgecombe 495), but it has a far closer relationship to the title if the common meaning is no longer referred to as “sorrowful” but as an extinct meaning of the sixteenth century, namely “to darken, to make dull or gloomy” (Oxford English Dictionary). This meaning of “Sad” gives therefore rise to a totally different interpretation and links up the second stanza with the title. “Sad Steps” can now be interpreted as dark steps, or steps into the dark, which gives a clue about the further development of the poem. The second stanza is not only linked to the title but also to the first stanza due to its rhyme scheme: “wedge-shadowed gardens lie” (ll. 4) and “wind-picked sky” (ll. 5) are linked with “am startled by” (ll. 2) of the first stanza, and create consequently the following rhyme scheme: ABA BBA that closely binds the first two stanzas together.

The second stanza does not end in a full stop like the first one, which means that an enjambment is present between line 6 and 7, stressed by a change in rhyme from

ABA BBA to CDC DDC. The third and fourth stanza belong again together just as the previous stanzas and the introduction of the enjambment prevents a loss of dynamics in the poem and pushes the reader to move on. Another element that prevents the loss of dynamics is the repetition of “moon” and “clouds”(ll. 7) which refer back to the third line of the first stanza. However, they do not only create repetition but also enforce one another: on one hand the first moon breaks through the curtains but its repetition breaks through a second layer, namely the rapid clouds, with which the emphasise is laid on the moon’s power and its effect on the man who sees it and is startled (1st moon breaks through 1st clouds) . The clouds on the other hand are first rapid and stress the stateliness and the power of the moon, but its repetition in line 7, that represents the clouds as loose cannon-smoke (ll. 8), is a metaphor for the moon that shoots its rays through the air and through the curtains. (2nd clouds enforce the second moon)

The emptiness after the third stanza is formally the central part of the poem and marks a shift from a describing perspective in the first part, past a more semantic and imaginary view of the poem to negative connotations of the moon in the fourth stanza: “Lozenge of love!”, “Medallion of art!” (ll. 11) (Naremore 334). “Preposterous” (ll. 10) in the sense of monstrous, foolish contradicts these metaphors of love and is linked up with “O wolves of memory!” (ll. 12) and both are enclosing line 11. They therefore point out the other side of the medallion in a figural sense but the other side of the moon in a literal way, namely that human beings have never seen its eternal dark side, and this is where the isotopy of darkness comes back again. In this stanza, the reader finds out that the moon is not only strong and powerful in a positive sense but also in a darker and a more destructive way. This explanation leads the poem towards the next stanza where the positiveness has disappeared and has made room for the destructive power of the moon. An enjambment between the fourth and fifth stanza emphasises “No,” (ll. 12) which indicates that the narrator was wrong and did not foresee that bad things are about to happen.

In the one but last stanza, it becomes clear what the poem is all about, how the suspension has build up during the poem and reaches its climax with “One shivers slightly, looking up there.” (ll. 13). Shivering as in “to split along the natural line of cleavage” (Oxford English Dictionary) shows the immense power of the moon and basically kills the man who is looking at it and is literally split in half. Line 14 and 15 serve then as anti – climax and take some distance from the dying man while it describes how the light goes out in his eyes : “Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare” (ll. 15). “Singleness” emphasises the helplessness of the man who is alone in his room in the middle of the night and that “wide stare” is a repetition of his initial “startled” (ll. 2) as a reflection of the other side of the medallion, the down side of the moon and its capacity to kill. Whereas the man was first amazed about the beauty of the moon, he is now dying and overwhelmed by fright and surprised about what had happened. Rhyme is again of such importance in a way that CDC DDC changes to EFE FFE and hereby, it marks the beginning of the third and last part of the poem.

The last stanza is introduced by a very important enjambment because earlier in the poem, stanzas only occur between two different parts, marked by a change in rhyme but in the third part, the enjambment between line 15 and 16 lengthens the suffering of the man from the fifth stanza to the sixth. The suffering goes on because the man has to think back to his youth (ll. 17), which causes him pain on a second and psychological level whereas the initial pain is of a physical order. The opposition of young and old is foregrounded in this last stanza, but it is already present in the poem if young is linked with romanticism of the first part and old with the sceptical and cynical reception of the moon in the second part. His younger reception is now completely gone and “it can’t come again” (ll. 17) because it means his death. The poem ends in a full stop which emphasises that the last thoughts of the man are over and that he is dead.

The isotopy and the images of darkness indeed play a significant role in this poem because it wants to react against romanticism by doing away with imagery of love and the romantic moonrays, since the poet indicates this indirectly in the first line of his poem. It puts the moon into a dark light by letting it kill an innocent old man who just had to go to the bathroom that night and it indicates that the moon is not that beautiful as it appears to be. The rhyme scheme of this poem is of such importance because it splits up the poem in three parts that serve as a construction of suspension towards the last part, giving the reader more and more evidence that the moon is not as good as it is represented by romantics. “Sad Steps” confirms the authors opinions about “I don’t want to transcend the commonplace, I love the commonplace life. Everyday things are lovely to me” (Norton Anthology 2566).

Works quoted:

“Philip Larkin.” In The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. 2. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. 2565 – 2566. Print.

Simpson, John and Edmund Weiner. “Oxford English Dictionary.” At Last accessed on 10 December 2012.

Ward, C. David. ” “Love Again”: Larkin and Obscenity.” The Sewanee Review 105.2 (1997): 227 – 243. Print.

Works consulted:

Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. “Larkin’s “Sad Steps” And the Augustan Night Piece.” Twentieth Century Literature 54.4 (2008): 493-513. Print.

Larkin, Philip. “Sad Steps.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. 2571. Print.

Naremore, James and Philip Larkin. “Philip Larkin’s “Lost World”.” Contemporary Literature. 15.3 (1974). 331-344. Print.