Toads Analysis

Lots of Larkin's poems are formally and metrically strict. He was a guy that liked a pattern. That being said, he wasn't afraid to have a little fun. "Toads" is a great example of how form and mete...

Let's see… where to begin? Well, the obvious is a good place to start. It's pretty easy to tell that our speaker is feeling more than a little put out by the whole toad-work thing. Those exclamat...

Larkin doesn't give us a super-obvious setting for this one. The speaker never declares he's here or there, inside or out. But there are some aspects of the poem that give us some sense of place. T...

One of the first things you might have noticed about "Toads" is that, when you read it aloud, (you should—really), it sounds very colloquial. That is, it sounds like the way people speak—maybe...

Titles are usually pretty important in poetry, and they can also be kind of fun. This title fits the bill on both counts.This simple, one-word title does a couple important things. First of all it...

Ol' Phil liked form, and lots of his poems use rhyme and meter. While "Toads" takes a less traditional approach, form still plays a part. (For more on this, check out "Form and Meter.")The bleak, "...

This hike can get a little tricky at times because of some unusual vocabulary-terrain. But if you use your handy, Shmoop-issued vocabulary decoder-ring (there isn't actually a ring, but we do expla...

Yes, the Larkin Toads (statues, not real ones) were finalists for the national tourism award. (Source.)Larkin's own toad was his job as a libariran. (Source.) Toads can eat as many as 10,000 insect...

With a title like "Toads," it isn't hard to guess that this isn't a sexy one. Larkin can get a little bawdy from time to time, but it doesn't happen here.