Sample Plan: Larkin

A filled-in plan for an explication of Larkin's "A Study of Reading Habits," with thesis, topic sentences, and details.

By Rick Reed

English 11AP: Literature and Composition

Sample Plan for Poetry Explication

Working Title	On “A Study of Reading Habits”

Thesis: The subject of “A Study of Reading Habits” is revelation about the speaker’s life and character which his reading habits provide.

Introduction

irony of the colloquial language of the poem in light of the formal title
title sounds like a stuffy research paper about people’s reading habits
title sets a formal tone
the poem traces the deterioration of a man by showing the decline of his tastes in literature

Topic Sentence	The poem consists of three stanzas which present a different stage of the speaker’s reading life.

Details	the three stanzas provide the structure of the meaning of the poem the first stanza presents the speaker’s boyhood, the second his teenaged years, and the third his adulthood the transitional words “When,” “Later,” and “now” establish the passage of time the third stanza offers the speaker’s situation in the present moment

Topic Sentence	In his boyhood the speaker felt unhappy both at home and at school.

Details	maybe small and/or the victim of bullies probably a weak student who felt the teachers didn’t like him reading provided him with an escape from his misery read mostly action and adventure stories identifies with the heroes in his books daydreams about overwhelming his tormentors

Topic Sentence	In his teenaged years the speaker dreamed of sex.
Details	his thick glasses don’t fit his romantic image of himself overemphasizes the size of those glasses retreats into his fantasies of being an irresistible lady’s man although he used to identify with heroes, now he identifies with the villain “ripping” has a double meaning: “splendid” and “violent”

Topic Sentence	In his adulthood, he does not read as much as he had once done.

Details	sees his life as that of a failure dwells so much on his perceived failings that he cannot identify with the outdoors man sees himself as an undependable coward his self-image has driven him to drink and drunkenness the ending has great shock value

Conclusion Topic Sentence	The speaker cannot be the poet. (I may need to do some research.)

Details	A poet would never call literature “a load of crap.” The speaker identifies with the weaker characters. He once served as a university librarian. He is an Oxford graduate and a poet. Poem is dramatic and ironic. The first-person speaker delivers a poem that is both dramatic and ironic His new form of escape is drinking. Both his self-image and his reading material decline throughout his life.