Solar - A poem by Philip Larkin

Poet: Philip Larkin
Poem: Solar
Volume: High Windows
Year: Published/Written in 1964
Poem of the Day on:
May 17 2003

Comment 3 of 3, added on March 31st, 2006 at 6:21 AM.

i like your idea, i think its not that likely but still it certainly corresponds with the pictures. i checked myself.

danbo from United Kingdom

Comment 2 of 3, added on March 13th, 2006 at 4:36 PM.

A bit far-fetched - Larkin only really left the country once and never visited Italy - and certainly wasn't the religious sort.

chris from United Kingdom

Comment 1 of 3, added on May 24th, 2005 at 7:17 AM.

I'm studying Larkin's 'High Windows' collection for an exam in a few days, and an idea occurred to me that I just had to test out. In the poem 'Solar', there are some strange phrases describing the sun, for example 'Coined there among lonely horizontals" and "unclosing like a hand". Nobody seems to have any definitive explanation of the 'coined...' bit, but I had the sudden thought that maybe it could be a link to the Sistine Chapel. 'Coined' could simply mean made up, invented then painted upon the ceiling, and 'unclosing like a hand', well, I'm sure I don't need to go into detail about the God/Adam hand touching bit on that ceiling. So I raced onto the internet to find some pictures to substantiate my idea, and sure enough, there is a large picture of the sun very close to the central God/Adam picture. Also, when looking at larger pictures, I was suddenly struck by another link - the beams running down the length of the chapel ceiling...are these the 'lonely horizontals'? Then there's the obvious link of 'our needs hourly climb and return like ANGELS' (my emphasis)...
Well, it might be that these links are just coincidences, and that Larkin never saw the ceiling, or meant to allude to it in his poem. But whether it's true or not, I think I've found a novel new interpretation of the latter part of 'Solar'.

Charlotte Lester from United Kingdom

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