So after completing my AS level English Literature paper, I can’t help feel a slight case of resentment. Yes, I managed to get through the isolation of Spies and the deception and betrayal of Tis’ Pity She’s A Whore, but it’s Philip Larkin who’s really got me screaming.
On the day of the explosion
Shadows pointed towards the pithead
in the sun, the slagheap slept
Down the lane came men in pitboots
Coughing oath edged talk and pipe smoke
Shouldering off the freshened silence.
One chased after rabbits; lost them;
Came back with a next of lark’s eggs;
Showed them; lodged them in the grasses.
So they passed in beards and moleskins,
Father’s, brothers, nicknames, laughter
Through the tall gates standing open.
At noon, there came a tremor; cows
Stopped chewing for a second; sun,
Scarfed as in a heat-haze, dimmed.
the dead go on before us, they
are sitting in God’s house in comfort,
We shall see them face to face –
Plain as lettering in the chapels
It was said, and for a second
Wives saw men of the explosion
Larger than in life they managed -
Gold as on a coin, or walking
Somehow from the sun towards them,
One showing the eggs unbroken.
Philip Larkin. High Windows 1974
The truth is, it’s not because I know too little about him, it’s because I know too much. The question that was asked involved the poem “The Explosion”. Ulitmately, I find this poem a beautifully constructed tragedy, one which portrays the delicacy and sensitivity in Larkin unlike his ‘things fuck you up’ style. Sitting there I couldn’t quite adequately put pen to paper about how I felt about it. Not only did I think it was the pinnacle ending to the collection, but it was the centre of Larkin’s tranquility, putting all his desolate fears of isolation and mortality into a harmonious context, finally setting Larkin’s mind at peace.
Talking to others, it seems as if I may have loved Larkin’s final poem a little too much, as I didn’t do the most vital thing in the exam and construct a reasonable for and against arguement. How silly of me.
Still, results day will tell all.
