Summary:'Essential Beauty' is a poem about the contrast in life on advertisement and reality. The poem is still very much relevant to modern day advertisement - TV advertisements, billboards, magazines and posters. Beauty and the idea of 'perfection' is plastered everywhere for everyone to see. Larkin's point in this poem is the idea that everyone wants this 'beautiful' life, but this is not in fact realistic. This fits in well with Larkin's usual pessimistic attitude throughout the collection of The Whitsun Weddings.
Themes:
The theme in this poem is about how people will continue to chase an unreachable goal of perfection - to be like the fairytales and life shown on TV.
Links:
'The Whitsun Weddings' - Larkin does not believe in the show of happiness. Larkin suggests that the coupes are acting/faking their happiness to make themselves and others believe it. This does not fool Larkin, and he sees sadness and regret in everyone.
'An Adrundel Tomb' - There is a display of eternal love, however Larkin uses the idea the their faces are unclear and love is in fact not 'eternal'. Larkin sees this again - as a false display of happiness, linking well to 'Essential Beauty'.
'Talking in Bed' - Talking in bed should be a happy thing. However Larkin uses the emotions of the couple to display a front each uses in order to keep the other happy, even though neither of them are. A false front from both people suggests that their marriage is untrue and unhappy. Like reality compared to life in advertisements.
Analysis:
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