Dockery and Son (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Philip Larkin
- First Published: 1964
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Parents and children, Schools or school life, College life, Fathers, Colleges or universities, Students or student life, Old age or elderly people, Aging
The Poem
“Dockery and Son” is a poem not really about either Dockery or his son; it is about the speaker, who is a typical persona of Philip Larkin. Larkin’s stock persona is someone unsuccessful in love, someone whom life has passed by. It is frequently a mistake to confuse the persona with the poet, but with Larkin one usually senses there is no great gulf between the two.
The poem begins with a conversation between the Dean and the speaker, who is revisiting his college. Typically, only the Dean is directly quoted, not the speaker of the poem. The Dean happens...
[The entire page is 1496 words long]
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