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Wed 3 Dec, 2003 12:43 pm
(Or, 'Another chain-post')
I remember, years ago, our English teacher would force us to think of a poem (or, failing that, a song) that typified either what we were feeling like or what we were thinking about at that moment in time. I thought that I'd try to follow that old tradition, as we got a whole scope of poems, songs and sonnets, all dependant on the day. What poem or song roughly describes what you're feeling/thinking, or what poem's on your mind?
An Arundel Tomb
Philip Larkin, from 'The Whitsun Weddings'
Side by side, their faces blurred
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love
That is one of my favorite poems of all time, dròm_et_rêve. Haunting and open to different interpretations:
Our almost-instinct almost true
Wonderful...
You know, the first two times I heard that poem, many years ago, it started snowing out of nothing, pure white snow came down capriciously. Sometimes it still does.
D'artagnan wrote:That is one of my favorite poems of all time, dròm_et_rêve. Haunting and open to different interpretations:
Our almost-instinct almost true
Wonderful...
Mine too! Despite all what one could consider Philip Larkin to be, all the cynicism and his world-weary look on life, one of the things that I thought when reading that was that, for hundreds of years, despite the huge changes from feudalism to capitalism, despite the complete swings in attitudes and ways of life, one thing survives: everyone now, like everyone then, wants to believe in love after death, that 'almost-instinct.' Of course, you could say that this is satire at its most brutal, but the former is what the romantic in me feels...
That explanation fits in well with what I've thought about the poem. In fact, you suggest something there that I never quite saw before--that the view of them as joined is what we want to believe, despite the notion that "Time has transfigured them into/Untruth."
I've read a fair amount about Larkin, and though he certainly had his rough edges, I don't think he was being satirical here. I suspect he felt the same ambivalence, the same wanting to believe in the image, that those who visit the tomb (and we) do.
D'artagnan wrote:I've read a fair amount about Larkin,
Me too. In fact, Larkin's poetry seems to be following me about. When I was much younger, I chose to analyse Larkin for my GCSE in Literature. Then, 'The Whitsun Weddings' was the required poetry text for my 'A' levels. I chose Comparative Poetry as an elective in my... second year of Uni... and he turned up again. One of my Literature teachers saw him a lot, as she studied in the library where he worked.
D'artagnan wrote:though he certainly had his rough edges, I don't think he was being satirical here. I suspect he felt the same ambivalence, the same wanting to believe in the image, that those who visit the tomb (and we) do.
I agree; he seems to battle with his cynicism to come to the conclusion that we all want to believe in. It's strange; despite being world-known for not having hairs on his tongue when it comes to handling the truth, one of his warmer poems could also be one of his best. Which Larkin poem do you think
is his best?
A poem that reflects what I'm thinking now:
To the moon
PB Shelley
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth...
I like "The Old Fools" (with the killer last line), "Aubade", the one you chose, and many others. "This Be the Verse" is always fun to recite to people who don't know it.
Have you ever read his novels? I think he disavowed them when he was older, but I thought they both relate well to his poetry.
What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange;
Why aren't they screaming?
'The old fools' got me wondering: is it better to live an absolutely fantastic life where everything goes your way, and one dies at the age of 29, or to live a life of ups and downs and die at the age of 95? It frightens me to think that people whom I love could end up this way... in a sort of decay.
I love 'Aubade' too; it shows his vulnerability, in a way... it's hard to think that, after such a full stop in his writing- with not-so-good poems like 'Love again,' that he could write something as touching as that again. Perhaps he really wanted something by which to remember him. It's a good exit.
I still have my old copy of The Whitsun Weddings, scribbled over erratically with annotations. 'Love songs in age' is particularly sad for me; 'Broadcast', though in no way his best, showed that he did have love for people. 'For Sidney Bechet' is rapturous; it was the first Larkin poem that I read... and 'The Whitsun weddings' itself is obviously worth mentioning.
I read Jill; it was good, but I prefer his poetry. Some people are poets, some people are authors. The Brontës were always better at books than poems, Larkin was always better at poems than books... still, I read it all without putting it down, I was keen.
Oddly enough, when Larkin and Amis were friends at Oxford, they thought L would write novels and A poetry. Hence those two early Larkin novels, I guess. I don't disagree that his poems are his great achievement.
I have a copy of "High Windows" (that poem, too, is among my favorites) that I bought in Liverpool some years ago, and I also have the complete poetry. I drag it out whenever I need to get in touch with my inner Larkin.
Re aging: Being on the downward slope myself (relatively speaking), I think more of my own future as one of the old fools, rather than those who are already there. I won't say the poem cheers me up, but I always believe it's good to know what to expect! I guess I'm glad I made it past 50 rather than flaming out at 29--but it's not an unmitigated thrill, I assure you...
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