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Comment 24 of 24, added on July 31st, 2006 at 5:10 PM.
I first read this poem aged 15, and now, 30 years later it still moves me. I once travelled to Arundel to find the tomb but couldn't, although the small chapel at Farleigh Hungerford Castle in Somerset which i visisted years ago contains something similarat least in my imagination.
For me, the last line is perhaps the only truth about human beings - an almost instinct - that as the beatles said love is all there is, After so many years have passed who can remember who the Earl & Countess really were what wealth nthye had or what they acheived? What we are reminded of is their apparent love for each other.
kevin morgan from United Kingdom
Comment 23 of 24, added on June 11th, 2006 at 9:19 AM.
In 'Arundel Tomb' time erodes and preserves. The stone monument has preserved an 'attitude' which 'time has transfigured them into untruth'. Time has preserved not the latin inscription, but the clasped hands of husband and wife. Even if only 'almost true' the emblem of their love has netherless endured.
i hope this helps anyone studying the themes of 'Arundel Tomb' :)
Kayleigh
Kayleigh from United Kingdom
Comment 22 of 24, added on June 7th, 2006 at 4:38 PM.
It seems that some commentators know and others do not that this poem was inspired by a real tomb of real people. They were Richard Fitzalan, 2nd Earl of Arundel and Eleanor his wife. She died in 1372 and he died in 1376. The carvings are currently in Chichester Cathedral. They were originally sited in Lewes Priory but were saved after the dissolution of that Priory (circa 1536)and transferred to Chichester.
Each figure is a separate sculpture combined with other carved stones to make the complete monument. When I stood beside it today and read the poem for the first time I felt a real frisson - hair tingling on the nape of the neck.
The individual figures were drawn in 1781 by S. H. Grimm. The drawings show the Earl with his right hand gauntletted holding the left gauntlett. His left arm is broken about six 1nches below the shoulder. His wife has her left hand folded under her robes with the hand placed on her heart. Her right arm is extended across her waist towards the Earl but in 1781 is broken six inches below the elbow. What is very unusual about her pose is that she is carved with her right leg over her left leg so that her whole body is turned towards the Earl. All other couples I have seen lie flat on their backs side by side. The reference for the drawing is BL Add. MS 29925, fol. 26. This evidence was used by E. A. Richardson to suggest they were originally joined together and the statues were restored as such. This was subsequently questioned . Current interpretation in the Cathedral explains that further proof has now been obtained that shows that this reconstruction of the figures is true to their original form.
For tombs of this date their are never any Latin inscriptions, so this part of the poem is poetic licence. At that time very few people could read at all. Literate people were usually clerics. There is some question about whether the tomb chest on which the figures lie is the original but this should not spoil the fact that a real tenderness was expressed back in 1375. This is the year that the two sculptures were shipped from Poole in Dorset to London and subsequently transported to Lewes. In the Earls will written in December 1375 he specifically instructs that his tomb in the Chapter House of Lewes should not be higher than his wife's. Thus he probably saw the completed effigies before his death and approved.
It is a stunning poem about a stunning sculpture.
John Lowe from United Kingdom
Comment 21 of 24, added on April 26th, 2006 at 11:39 AM.
All those before me are so right about this poem. Philip Larkin strikes me as a mopey, toad-faced wierdo, but this poem rocks my socks off!
The image of love is fantastic! Not one of these over the top affairs, just really mature and sentimental.
Buck from United Kingdom
Comment 20 of 24, added on April 26th, 2006 at 10:14 AM.
It is the notion of Love that survives the couple. They may have hated each other for all we know. I think it is a fantastic poem, as it can be perceived as optimistic and sentimental but really it is not-it is quite a depressing idea that nothing of the actual couple is held for prosperity only a carved half-truth that re-inforces our own worries of mortality.
Or I may be wrong.
PHIL from United Kingdom
Comment 19 of 24, added on February 13th, 2006 at 4:59 PM.
The thing I admire about this poem is the transience it seems to express, the continual and undinted march of time and change. Throughout the long passage of time, the sculpture endures. Time has made the couple remote from us, eroding their identity, reducing them to historical relics; wispy, vaporous traces of 'their scrap of history'. Yet their fidelity is stone; cold and inert, an abstraction from real life. The true condition of human life and love is transience, not survival. And I don't think that Larkin ended the poem with an affirmation of the enduring power of love, but rather the persistent human belief in love; our 'almost-instinct' is ratified by an indistinct statue that has been moulded to create a symbolically perfect love.
Chloe Newton from United Kingdom
Comment 18 of 24, added on January 6th, 2006 at 5:06 AM.
It is the forst time I have come across Phillip Larkin and I think that 'An Arundel Tomb' is a poem full of rich and suggestive meaning which makes the readers enjoy what they are reading.It is also quite interesting how some of the irony created by Larkin was accidental as the hand on the statue were created by the victorians.
Mohsin Iqbal from United Kingdom
Comment 17 of 24, added on January 5th, 2006 at 2:32 PM.
I personally think,that apart from hearing about Philip Larkin being so boring and a solitary man who finds little interest in life,I seem to see a glimmer of interest and things that engage him to have interest,especially in "An Arundel Tomb".He has a considerate interest in what he's doing.The first time i read this poem i found it a bit difficult to understand but now i understand that Larkin's poem is a lovely artifact of language.The language creates a sense of despair.I particulary enjoyed reading the last line " What will survive of us is love".I reckon that Larkin is linking to the couple and how they lived their life.However it may also represent an image of our perception of love being idealised.
Nailah Rafi from United Kingdom
Comment 16 of 24, added on January 5th, 2006 at 12:40 PM.
If someone wants to be approached by a beautifully crafted/designed poem then you read this. This poem is a reminder of the subliminal power of a truly great poet and his work. Ambiguous from start to finish, thought provoking throughout, paradox after paradox; in a word - superb. (Shame about the terrible news later discovered about them damn victorians, although it does make this poem increasingly ironic, even more ambiguous, or maybe just makes the main motif of the poem groundless!)
Michael Nipper from United Kingdom
Comment 15 of 24, added on January 5th, 2006 at 10:06 AM.
This is the first poem by Larkin i've come across. Personally i don't like his style very much. Sure, he can write better poems then i could in a lifetime.But the ways he describes love isn't my cup of tea to be honest. But i do think 'An Arundel Tomb' is a well written poem, just not my kind of thing.
Michael Jones from United Kingdom
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I first read this poem aged 15, and now, 30 years later it still moves me. I once travelled to Arundel to find the tomb but couldn't, although the small chapel at Farleigh Hungerford Castle in Somerset which i visisted years ago contains something similarat least in my imagination.
For me, the last line is perhaps the only truth about human beings - an almost instinct - that as the beatles said love is all there is, After so many years have passed who can remember who the Earl & Countess really were what wealth nthye had or what they acheived? What we are reminded of is their apparent love for each other.
kevin morgan from United Kingdom