The Arundel Tomb, Chichester Cathedral
www.newi.ac.uk
The happening that prompted the previous post started me thinking about the Philip Larkin poem, An Arundel Tomb. I lived near Chichester for several years and both the tomb and the cathedral were familiar sights.
Larkin had the reputation of being both misogynistic and morose yet he wrote here one of the best known twentieth century poems on love. Does he believe what he states in the last line? Or is he hinting that we are all willing participants in a collective delusion? Probably both. He remains ambiguous, giving nothing away, which is part of the appeal in view of my own feelings - a queasy mix of anxiety and yearning - on the subject.
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.
It's a beautiful poem. The whole thing, plus some helpful notes, can be found here.
14 comments:
Amazing verses, but not at all ambiguous, as soon as they come to echoe an experience of love, which seems to me always dual, perhaps always lethal, to something, in some way.
I heard that Larkin was mysoginic, but I cannot stop loving him for that. I'm somtimes mysoandric myself, that's because of love, I think.
Beautiful indeed, MM. Bittersweet.
Arevik, you've said it better than I could and prompted me to amend the post slightly. Thank you.
I think I should go back and read more Larkin.
LJ: Bittersweet indeed. Perhaps the human experience of love is never anything else, which is why the poem resonates so much with so many.
. . . to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true
I love that.
Beautiful post.
Dale: me too.
Wonderful. Have missed you.
I hope you are okay and your absence is not due to floods.
Never heard of this writer, but the lack of love can turn us to stone, I feel.
I first came across this poem as a reference in one of Geoff Dyer's books; even as the short quotation it contained that melancholy beauty that characterises the whole poem.
Good luck; I hope the floods left you unscathed. Glad you're blogging again :-)
Thank you, everyone.
Where ARE you, MM???
Too deep a subject for me...it resonates with the part of me that grieves at the Losses implicit in the experience of human LOVE.
xo
thinking of you...
As there is no comment box on your latest post, I comment here.
That first paragraph has been dancing through my head for the last half hour.
Clarity is a wonderful feeling and I am so glad for you MM.
Post a Comment