This be close reading

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

This line, which begins Larkin's poem, "This Be the Verse", so forcefully, has long been a puzzlement to scholars, who have debated amongst themselves since its publication what the meaning of "fuck you up" might be.  I believe that the key to understanding the line, which recapitulated and varied in the other quatrains (thus giving the poem the structure of a partially-deranged sonata), lies in the preposition, "up".  If the speaker of the poem were to have averred that "your mum and dad" merely "fuck you", then the meaning would be clear: the poet would be decrying, or at least pointing out, the incestuous foundations of Western societies since the Greeks.  However, as so often happens with words of Germanic origin, here the "up" has the effect of transforming the meaning of the main verb: rather than be a commentary on the direction of fucking, we must recognize that fucking itself has changed.  How, one might ask?  We look to that most prototypical of "up"-modified verbs: conjure.  To fuck something up is to conjure up, or cause to come into existence, by means of fucking.  An example with another common verb will put to rest any doubt: for do we not say that one can whip up a PowerPoint presentation, cookies, or military intelligence, meaning thereby that we will create them by means of whipping, respectively, generic business cliches, eggs & flour, or hapless innocents?  Thus we see that Larkin here refers to nothing more than biological processes at their most crude: they fuck you up, they beget you.  Fuck up a kid or two if you're lamenting your own now-vanished youth.

They may not mean to, but they do.

Larkin here comments on the sad truth: many children are unwanted.  Some parents, it is true, make a conscious decision to fuck up kids, and take means to prevent fucking up until they have so decided: they are to be commended.  However, others, whether through carelessness, lack of contraceptives or ignorance of their use, religious upbringing, or what-have-you, fuck their kids up willy-nilly, without necessarily even knowing that that's what they're doing.

They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

The poet's meaning is opaque here.  At first, one is tempted to think of cell division in the fertilized egg ("the faults they had"); however, it is difficult to reconcile this with the statement that "some extra" faults are exhibited in the gamete.  Indeed, the poem appears to be paradoxical at this point, for how can one be "filled" with a "fault", when a fault is specifically a gap, a that-which-is-unfilled?  However, this too can be explained, if we look past the birth: for infants have many more bones, and therefore more "faults", if you will, than an adult, and these bones are created and grow only as the baby takes in calcium from its mother's milk—that is to say, the baby is not so much filled with faults as filled up with faults: faults are created (and then, note, filled, as the baby grows) by means of a filling with milk.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

The first two lines of this quatrain are nothing more than the aforementioned recapitulation of what might be called the main theme, biological reproduction.  Note, however, that although it is a recapitulation, that which it describes properly speaking happens before what is described in the first quatrain, thus demonstrating the defamiliarizing uses to which Larkin puts the flow of time.  (Much interesting work remains to be done in this area.)

The final two lines, I'm pretty sure, are oral sex references of various sorts.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Here we see an instance of Larkin's fondness for employing common words in uncommon senses.  "Misery" here refers, of course, to the sixth definition in the OED, "bodily pain or discomfort"; notably, one of the illustrative quotations is "Lizy's took bad with a misery in her stomach"—that is, Lizy's pregnant.  "Man hands on misery to man" calls attention to that which is not present, the pregnant woman, whose belly "deepens" as the gamete grows, just as does the tree of sexual reproduction, leading all the way back into the sea, whence our first ancestors emerged (thus showing the aptness of the simile).

Interestingly, manuscript drafts reveal that the original of the first line of this quatrain was to have been "Man hands inhumanity to man", showing that, for all that this poem is deeply concerned with biology, for a good while Larkin himself was ironically uninformed on the subject, and hewed to an outmoded homuncular theory of reproduction, "in-humanity" here being synecdochic for "sperm", on the principle that it is the little human living in the sperm that gives it its vital force.

Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

The variation on the theme, coming after the statement and recapitulation, is meant to show the derangement of those who would issue such a call.

Comments

[bitchphd]

I think you should submit this to PMLA.

[eb]

I'm glad to see that your presentation went well.

[text]

now do "the red wheel-barrow."

congrats on your presentation. I sent you vibes, ingrate.

[Kriston]

They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

Following along with your reading—could this first line be reaching ahead to the next stanza, referring to the genetic imperfections each parent received (or manifested) at conception, which are then passed along again? The second line, then, referring obliquely to the unique mutations that are "added" to the parental DNA?

(It's an excellent reading, btw)

[Michael]

hilariousness

[Terry]

Is this a joke?

To fuck something up is to spoil it, to ruin it, to make a mess of it. As in FUBAR - fucked up beyond all repair.

Larkin's poem is not about reproduction or biology. It is about Larnik's belief that parents ruin their children through poor parenting and by passing on their fears and negative views of the world.

They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you.

Man hands on misery to man - passing on this negativity through the generations which - deepen like a coastal shelf.

I think you fucked up!

Terry

[ben wolfson]

Maybe what you say goes for whatever "Larnik" poem you're thinking of, Terry, but until you cite some, you know, textual evidence, I'm sticking by my interpretation of the Larkin.

[Nico]

No! What?! Seriously? You need textual evidence to know the meaning of "they fuck you up?" It's a commonplace term dude. You over-analyzed. That's all there is to it.

[ben wolfson]

Typical anti-intellectualism.

[Anon]

>>We look to that most prototypical of "up"-modified verbs: conjure.

Why is this the most prototypical 'up'-modified verb? Why is this more prototypical than other meanings of 'up', like completeness?

>>The final two lines, I'm pretty sure, are oral sex references of various sorts.

You're pretty sure- well that's settled then.

>>The variation on the theme, coming after the statement and recapitulation, is meant to show the derangement of those who would issue such a call.

This be close misreading.

[rob940]

Over analysed to the point of projectile vomiting.

Look at his life story, he lived with his parents until far too old.

[dave heasman]

"Get out as early as you can"

pretty obviously a reference to the favourite English contraceptive method (maybe second to body odour) - withdrawal. This is sometimes difficult to do if you're both standing up in a bus shelter in Hull, but the provincial English are nothing if not ingenious.

"And don't have any kids yourself."

i.e. be male. He was, it was all he knew, and he knew it was best.

"Man hands on misery to man"
This is interesting; it's rare you see a reference to a "circle-jerk" in English poetry - unconscious Ginsberg reference *but in which direction, eh? eh?*

"And half at one another's throats" - see above but different.
Well, well, Larkin the beat poet of grime. Thanks, Ben, I'd never have noticed.

[standpipe b]

I've been studying the poem pretty intently, but I can't seem to tease out anything about projectile vomiting. Maybe it's incipient in dave h's last remark above?

[gar]

Absofuckinglutely brilliant analysis.

[Julia]

As a former teacher of literary theory, I (perhaps belatedly) applaud you.

[daniel]

Hm. This is silly.

Unless you're being deliberately sarcastic, you're just...wrong. It's simple, it's not that many-layered business you're looking for. And let's not start pointing the anti-intellectual stick - shame, shame. 'ben wolfson' was right. "They fuck you up" -- they mess you up. They ruin you. They do a bad job. They fuck you up!

May I put it into layman's terms? As if it weren't already clear enough in Larkin-terms...

Your parents mess up your head (if you must, they beget it into messiness).
They might not have bad intentions, but it's unavoidable; they take the pure form of an innocent baby and fill it with all of their faults, plus some new ones....just for kicks. (No, I don't mean they're going to kick it. It means...*sigh*....oh let's move on)...

They can't help it since their parents fucked them up --- read: messed them up --- too. They were either wishy-washy disciplinarians, or fighting. It's NOT an oral sex reference. You dirty....(mumble grumble).

Man hands on misery to man.
(Clear? You with us?)
It deepens --- just builds up ---
like a coastal shelf.

Don't have kids!
You'll be releasing your fuckedupedness on the world.

Yes, I mean you.

[daniel]

Whoops.

Ben Wolfson was wrong....
so terribly wrong!!!

I meant Nico.

[ben wolfson]

You're seriously telling me that the conjunction of "soppy" (ie moist; wet) and "stern" (stiff, with a hint of punishment—well, it is Larkin), combined with a blatant allusion to deep-throating, isn't remotely sexual? Seriously?

[daniel]

I'm seriously telling you that you're seriously bad at close reading.

Seriously.

[daniel]

P.S. Little humans don't live in sperm.

[ben wolfson]

I don't know if you want to go there, daniel. I know a thing or two about biology.

[Firas]

Yes, your analysis of the first line is seriously off the rails.

"To fuck something up is to conjure up, or cause to come into existence, by means of fucking."

No! To fuck something up is to 'screw it up', i.e. to ruin it. When someone on Saturday night informed me that he was "totally fucked up" he meant that he was drunk--not that he was conceived through intercourse!

Seriously, call up five friends you trust and ask them what "to fuck something up" means. You can't honestly be oblivious of its common meaning?

[ben wolfson]

You can't honestly be oblivious of its common meaning?

Exactly. I can't. Consequently, the account of its common meaning I give above must be right. You, contrariwise, exhibit no such incapability.

[Firas]

Okay okay. I get it. This post is a joke.

[Anonymous]

Wow, anybody who claims that "fuck you up" *must* have its meaning confined to its common adage is an idiot. Literation would be dead if "this" always mapped to "that".

Dress you up. Pick you up. Scoop you up. Write you up. Eat you up. Fix you up. Whip you up.

Note that each word preceeding "you" is a verb. "Fuck" is also commonly used as a verb. Thus, "fuck you up" is a perfectly valid way of talking about reproduction. Just because we commonly use "fuck you up" to mean something else does nothing to minimize the validity of this usage.

[Michelle]

I don't think that you are fucked-up enough to understand what he was getting at.

The meaning of this is perfectly clear to anybody who has any experience growing up amongst working class Londoners. I showed it to my dad before he died, he was from the East End, and he understood what it was about immediately, and saw how good it was.

As a kid he was always telling me off for screwing things up - and the usage is the same for fucking things (or people) up. You read more into this poem than is there, and in the process you have fucked it up, mate.

[Michelle]

"Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself."

> The variation on the theme, coming after the statement and recapitulation, is meant to show the derangement of those who would issue such a call.<

This contradicts all that you have just said - if you are going to draw the sorts of allusions from sexual reproduction, then this would not refer to a deranged mindset of self-annihilation, but to the act of coitus-interruptus.

Thus, getting out while you can entails the intent of not depositing any semen by which an egg would be fertilized - the two lines together are a remedy for not reproducing the legacy passed down through generations. Withdrawal prior to ejaculation to ensure that no children are produced through sexual union.

Not saying that I read this in the poem, but that is what should follow on your analysis. Personally, I think he meant what he wrote - get out when you can, and don't leave any fucked-up brats behind.

Let's face it, there's plenty to go round as it is.

[ben wolfson]

If you want to read the ending "straight", that's fine, Michelle, but I tend to think that there are two levels at which the poem operates; there's the level of the manifest content, which accords with your reading of the last two lines as alluding to coitus interruptus (or, as I prefer to call it, aposiopenis), and there's the formal level. The beauty here is that the two readings are compatible: you're right that the manifest content of the final two lines is as you've said, which makes the message revealed by their placement (that is, the formal level) all the more powerful. There is an, if you like, arrangement derangement, by which the poet passes judgment on the surface meaning. (You might want to interpret this as the poem escaping from his control and passing judgment on him, or some such postmodern confabulation, I suppose; the point is merely that there is this slippage between the formal content and the surface content.)

[Simon D]

'Too-clever' over-analysis which spectacularly misses the point. Quite astounding really; Finbarr Saunders couldn't have put it better himself!
Kind of ironic too that someone who conjures-up penises all over the shop lives in blissful ignorance of his own fucked-upedness.
On the plus side you do clearly possess a good turn of phrase.

[ben wolfson]

I'm perfectly aware of my own fucked-upness, Simon; do you think I think I was created via asexual reproduction?

[JP Stormcrow]

Reading this comment thread makes me realize why we need organizations like The Electronic Mine Information Network.

[JohnM]

I can't believe what I am reading here. Larkin believed all his woes were the fault of his parents and he had plenty of woes! I can assure you my son feels the same and can identify with this work. Oh how further from the truth we travel when we over-analyse a writers simple intention.

[EdZ]

I just stumbled on this discourse when I wanted to send my newly-married daughter a link to the Larkin poem about parents (or me as a dad) making a mess of their off-springs lives - or FUCKING THEM UP (and apologising for it). So to read some of Ben's analyses and remarks shows how really fucked up he is.
Others have said that Larkin was a sort of poet of the people, so would not use psuedo-sexual shite to cover up what he really meant.

[EdZ]

PS
sorry about the missing apostrophe -- where was it to be put?

[anjeamazing]

thanks for brightening my day

[Garrick Roberts]

You must be a pretentious idiot.

[Warls]

Now I rememember why I disliked my English Lit degree so much! Didn't Larkin live in Hull? I'd blame my parents as well if I ended up there.

[Elaine]

Haha!! I read this and laughed because I thought it was a joke! But then I read your posts and realise that you really think this is the intrepretation of Larkin's poem!

But then, poetry is what we make of it, isn't it? Even if it was not what the poet originally intended. My old English lecturer saw sex in every poem he read, and it didn't stop him from suceeding in life did it?
I personally annoyed another lectuer by over analising 'The Way through the Woods' by Kipling and then won a competition for my analysis!

It's brave to put forward different views. You go!

[Phil]

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your literary analysts
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they have
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style mortar boards and gowns,
Who half the time were sloppy-fastidious
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misinformation to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Graduate as early as you can,
And don't write any poems yourself.

(or any more of this nonsense)

[ben wolfson]

Don't quit your jobs day, Phil and Elaine.

[michelle]

Your interpretation of the poem does full justice to the Latin phrase which heads your blog: Nescire aude, or "Dare to be ignorant."

[ben wolfson]

Oh man—that's what it means? I don't believe it.

[michelle]

credo te tacito ridere naso.

[ben wolfson]

This must be an idiom with which I'm unfamiliar.

[michelle]

"I believe you are laughing with a silent nose." In other words, tongue in cheek. Borat amok in academe?

[ben wolfson]

It was the silent nose that threw me. (I don't normally laugh with my nose at all—but then I suppose my tongue mostly between my cheeks.)

Not quite amok, alas, and I suspect Borat makes a fair bit more than I do.

[Paul]

I think the original comment is "taking the piss".

[Sylvia]

Oh my god, the comment thread is almost as brilliant as the post, except, um, less intentionally.

[amelia]

i have such a deep admiration for the florid methadology of your mind that i must ask if you are single.

[amelia]

i have such a deep admiration for the florid methadology of your mind that i must ask if you are single.

[Dave]

Having just come across this posting much of what I would have said has been said, but I'll say it anyway.
I have read some pretentious, out of whack, literary analysis in my time, but this beats most of it. It's so off the ball that I really cannot believe that anyone with even half a brain could possibly have dreamt up such nonsense.
Larkin, whom I met, and found to be, at least on that occasion, a rather glum man, would have thrown up had he seen what someone has read into his perfectly straight poem about the potetial for 'some' parents to fuck your life up.
I sometimes think the world's going mad. Bring back illiteracy when people just listened to poems and stories and accepted them for what they were. It's easy to be smart-arsed, loud, confident, and wrong.

[Berry]

What absolute tripe. Does the writer seriously not know what to fuck something up means in common English parlance? If s/he doesn't understand that term, how on earth can s/he pretend to understand Larkin and analyse his poetry?