Philip Larkin’s “Church Going” Summary and Analysis

 

PhilipLarkin’s “Church Going”

Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

—  English poet, novelist and librarian

—  He edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century

—  He declined the position of Poet Laureate

—  S K Chatterjee “Larkin is no longer just a name but an institution, a modern British national monument ”

—  Larkin’s style was traditional, the subject matter was derived from modern life

—  In 1946, Larkin discovered poetry of Thomas Hardy

—  Larkin focused on intense personal emotion but strictly avoided sentimentality or self-pity.

—  Larkin’s words possess what Martin Amis has termed “frictionless memorability”

Works

—  Poetry

—  The North ship 1945

—  The Less Deceived 1955

—  The Whitsun Wedding 1964

—  High Windows 1974

—  Novels

—  Jill 1946

—  A Girl in Winter 1947

—  Criticism, essays and reviews on Jazz Music

—  All What Jazz: A record Diary 1961-1968

—  Required Writing : Miscellaneous pieces 1955

Poem

·      Once I am sure there’s nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

—  Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don’t.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
“Here endeth” much more loudly than I’d meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

—  Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx[1] in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

—  Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples[2] for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress[3], sky,

—  A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts[4] were?
Some ruin-bibber[5], randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands[6] and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

—  Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation — marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these — for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea
What this accoutred[7] frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

—  A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

 

Churchgoing

—  One of the best loved poems

—  Appeared in The Less Deceived (1955)

—  In an interview (1981), Larkin said “it came from the  first time  I saw a ruined church in N. Ireland ”

—  By the mid 1950s, the Church of England was in the process of long and gradual decline both in numbers and authority. 

Historical Background

—  Larkin had kept a newspaper clipping from the Church Times on May 7, 1954 entitled “Save our church week” announcing a campaign for the Historic Churches preservation Trust. In the clipping the Archbishop of Canterbury said that over 2000 churches must be helped at once from falling into ruin

—  Church going is a medium length poem that explores the issues of the church as a spiritual base. It begins ordinarily enough as do many of Larkin’s poems, then progresses into the subject matter.

Theme

—  Religion

—  The established Church

—  The need to worship

—  The Ceremony of ritual

—  The future of church

—  Superstition

—  Religious feeling

Structure

—  7 stanzas each with 9 iambic pentametre lines

—  Use of end rhymes and enjambment

—  Rhyme scheme : ababcaece

Poem in a glance

—  The Speaker glances around and notices all the items that are consistent throughout all the churches  that h has visited

—  There are books, set of stones, unignorable overwhelming silence

—  The speaker continues his journey through the church and takes to  reading from the bible.

—  He speaks a few verses in an increased volume, spreading the words around the space.

—  This ends his tour around the church and he departs leaving an “Irish sixpence” an incredibly small amount in the donation box

—  He is curious about what the churches will be or what the human race will utilize all the churches for, when the very last believer is gone.

—  When they have fallen completely out of use, will they be avoided as unlucky places

—  Or will the sheep have full rein over their interiors

—  He considers the possibility that in the future people will still come to churches for a variety of spiritual reason

—  Mothers might bring their children to touch a particular stone for luck or perhaps people will come to see the dead walking

—  He says power of some sort might go on even if the traditional meaning is gone

—  Rood loft and rood screen : it is a feature of late medieval church architecture that was situated between chancel and the nave at the front of the church

—  The most important times of human lives are connected to religion, Birth and Death

—  The title of the poem gives two meaning

—  1. regular visit to the church

—  2. decline of the institution

—  A few cathedrals may be preserved as museums for future generation because of its great art and architecture value

—  The church is a “serious house on the serious earth”

—  A church is a symbol of man’s existence and his search for ultimate meaning of life.