The poem
What are days for? Days are where we live. They come, they wake us Time and time over. They are to be happy in: Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question Brings the priest and the doctor In their long coats Running over the fields.
Given that "solving" has not been used entirely accidentally, what - if anything - is one supposed to infer about Larkin's thoughts on the possibilities of "answering" the question he has posed? And who - if anyone apart from oneself - does Larkin suppose may be qualified so to do?
this poem is easy to understand and i used it for my final test project ^_^ i love Philip Larkin's poem...
The second stanza can be interpreted in many different ways,such as it can be seen as that the answer to the question brings the two highly educated men to the brink of insanity. This may then send them ‘running over the hills’ which can be viewed as a metaphor, or a suggestion that they have lost the plot. A worrying thought that such as question can cause illness in people of such intelligence.
Truelly brilliant work!!!
The first time I read “Days”, it left me confused. I had to think about it for a while in order to make sense of it. In the poem, days are given a different meaning: “Days are where we live” They are also personified: “They come, they wake us.” “Days” represent life and the inevitability if it. We are born into days and we die in days. “They come, they wake us./ Time and time over” No matter what we do, there is no…
Read the whole commentThe first time I read “Days”, it left me confused. I had to think about it for a while in order to make sense of it. In the poem, days are given a different meaning: “Days are where we live” They are also personified: “They come, they wake us.” “Days” represent life and the inevitability if it. We are born into days and we die in days. “They come, they wake us./ Time and time over” No matter what we do, there is no way we can prevent whatever is going to happen. “Where can we live in but days?” There is nowhere else to live in but days: We have no choice, no control over our lives. We never chose to be born and we will not have chosen to die. “Solving” this brings “the priest and the doctor”, a scientist and a religious man, two men of different –perhaps opposing- fields that study life, “running over the fields”: It brings them to realize the truth and makes them leave whatever they are doing and try to enjoy life.
for me the ending is what makes this poem glorious. i saw it very visually, the doctor and priest, thinking they have solved this question "what are days for?" running across the fields with excitement to tell of their new discoveries: as if 'what days are for', like what life is for, is something to be solved by some one specific solution.
Days
I enjoyed this poem. When i first read it I didn't understand it. Since this poem was so short i decided i would use it as the poem i would memorize and read to the class, it was VERY VERY essay to memorize considering i memorized it during my math class. Then when my teacher explained it I realized it was ok, but i don't care that much for poetry, i am only in 7th grade.
DAYS
ok soo im just gona say it, this poem sucks, its a nerd poem. i enjoy the poems that i can read and then know what its saying, with this thing i didnt get it.......i think it gets a T of terrible
days
I was very interested to hear others' interpretation of the
'priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields".
...as in my mind this image very clearly suggests death:
Who do you call when you are dying? The doctor and the priest... and as death is an urgent matter they will come running (over the fields, the 'long coats' is also quite a funereal image).
To read these other interpretations (running towards the answer, or in joy or madness), has made the poem (one of my favourites) more multi-faceted to me. I couldn't actually see beyond the image of death that this poem evoked for me, so I have enjoyed 'seeing outside of that box' (so to speak).
days of our lives
to Kathleen from UK:
I wouldn't get so exited over the other comments, friend. They are not "seeing outside the box" but rather "inside". Larkin has definitely solved "the question" and so will we - and surely we won't be there to see the distressed witnesses of our solution :)
What are days for?
I copied this poem from a subway poster several years ago, and put it in frame on my desk. I think it's about two questions. The first is easy to answer: Days are where we live. That's the ordinariness of life, and we can be happy there. But when we try to go beyond that and ask a more esoteric question, like where can we live but days (like, what does that MEAN?) that implies dissatisfaction and unhappiness with…
Read the whole commentI copied this poem from a subway poster several years ago, and put it in frame on my desk.
I think it's about two questions. The first is easy to answer: Days are where we live. That's the ordinariness of life, and we can be happy there. But when we try to go beyond that and ask a more esoteric question, like where can we live but days (like, what does that MEAN?) that implies dissatisfaction and unhappiness with what is, which is why the doctors and priests come in (notice no philosphers) -- that's their field. It's a kind of ridiculouse image, doctors and priests running in long coats symbolizing authority flapping behind them. I imagine them running around a meadow with butterfly nets, for some reason, and I guess it's because days are like butterflies and if you try to pin them down, you kill them.
But obviously, that's just my interpretation, and I like the poem way beyond the interpretation. It's kind of like days.
Days
I've always felt the 'doctor' in this is not a doctor of medicine but an academic.
I believe Larkin is taking the mickey out of those who would try to impose some sort of abstract meaning or ideology on us - be it religious or otherwise.
The image of the two learned men running over the hills suggests a frantic ineffectual flailing for meaning.
As you are aware Larkin was a depressive person & all he wrote was pessimistic. This poem is, I think, his own struggle between life, happiness, death.
Days are where we live
Days are to be happy in
Where can we live but days.
He is not happy in his own days so he ponders on another place because he knows himself he cannot be happy, but he also knows there is nowhere else. Or is there?... (death)
He cannot solve it and becomes ill with grief.
I think the fields symbolizes a long race between the doctor, who desires to help(keep him in his days) and the priest who wants to deliver him to happiness. A confliction of two different people in larkins mind but either are soothing to him.
i agree with kathleen from United Kingdom; i think he makes a question: where can we live but days? and the answer is: on death, explained in a artistically way.
musings
to me the poem is obvious.it begins with question that "what are days for?" and the poet answers it is a place for us to live happily in.moreover this elegant solution leads to bring together two disparate groups for intense celebration of life.thus the poem has optimistic note.