An Arundel Tomb Flashcards
(12 cards)
Theme:
-passage of time, religion
‘Side by side, their faces blurred The earl and countess lie in stone’
-‘Side by side ‘ here illustrates how the couple have been together in life and are now together in death , buried together , creating a sense of loyalty in their relationship.
-The fact that their faces are blurred can be taken literally , or more metaphorically +Literally the faces of the statues , will become blurred as the stone grows old , ancient and worn away + Could be more metaphorical , in the fact their faces are unidentifiable , we can’t picture these two people , or their relationship as a couple - no identity, how do we know they were loving.
-‘The earl and countess lie in stone’ use of the verb lie , is polysemic here , the couple are physically lying in stone in their tomb, but also symbolically , something about themselves or their relationship could be lying , eg them as a loving couple.
‘With a sharp tender shock, his hand withdrawn, holding her hand’
-‘sharp tender shock’ oxymoron and a contradiction of terms
-sibilant, alliterative ‘sh’s’ are soft suggesting the loving nature of the relationship
-unexpected response of the speaker to what he is witnessing
-sudden feeling of sweetness and niceness when Larkin perceived the ungloved hand of the Earl holding his wife’s
‘They would not guess how early in Their supine stationary voyage’
-the love of the couple has survived through everything despite knowing relatively very little about them
-modern perspective has focus being drawn away from the family history and the breast and more towards the couple and the supposed love between them
-‘voyage’ and ‘stationary’ are oxymoronic and links to the tomb itself and its in relation to time that’s continued to progress and pass + the tomb has stayed stagnant and unmoving during this + metaphorical joinery of evolution
‘Time has transfigured them into Untruth’
‘Our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love’
-the effigy has become and emblem for love and its ability to transcend time
-marked contrast to most of the poem
-suggest that love can warm the cynical speaker
-the need people have for connections
-verb ‘prove’ demonstrates how something is correct
-Larkin in the final statement makes the poem more universal + If something is almost instinct and almost true , then it is neither an instinct or true.
-Larkin here is trying to get across how it is often an instinct for people to say love gets us through , however , though this isn’t a lie , this isn’t the whole truth.
-‘ What will survive of us is love’ the gesture of the couple + almost portrays this universal image as true +the couple appear simply because they are holding hands to have had a loving relationship , to have been loyal and caring yet , the Larkin , the visitors and the readers know nothing about the relationship , the lives and the identity of these people.
-Larkin here is criticising the idea that love conquers all.
Summary:
In the poem, the speaker is looking at stone effigies of a medieval earl and countess. Surprised to see that they are depicted holding hands, the speakers sets off a complex mediation about the nature of time, morality, and love
‘Snow fell, undated. Light each summer thronged the glass’
-represents the changing seasons and the progression of time; winter, summer and spring
-suggests a timelessness; the continued endurance of the statues through the ages
-personifies the light (the rays of light as a throng of people wanting to view the pure form of love depicted’
Context:
-response to seeing a pair of recumbent medieval tomb effigies with their hands joined
-written based on Larkin’s experience visiting Chichester Cathedral with Monica Jones + saw the medieval effigy for the 10th Earl of Erundal and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster (thought to have died around 1372-1376)
-overtime the focus has become less about the family crest and status and more on the gesture of love
-by the 19th century the Arundel effigy had become badly damaged and worn away + 1843 Edward Richardson was commissioned to repair the tomb which he did (may account for the greater symbolism of love)
-tomb was originally erected during the era of the feudal system
Saunders ‘Time is the…
…great deceiver’
Andrew Swarbrick ‘They also want to pay homage to human…
…qualities of sympathy and persistence which resist the passage of time’
Swarbrick ‘Larkin has a preoccupation…
with the disparity between illusion and reality’
