Church going

Recounting his experience of visiting a church

Title - going to the church or the church going away?

Stated by Larking to be "an entirely secular poem" NOT RELIGIOUS

Style - self-mocking, conversational and rich in detail

Layout - stanzas identical in length, form of poem reflects the large, spacious architecture of a church, formal stanza pattern, seven nine line stanzas, mainly iambic pentameter

Real experience

Stanza 1 - feels as though he shouldn't be there, uninformed, wandering tourist

"thud shut" - onomatopoeia

"another church" boredom, monotony

"flowers, cut for Sunday, brownish now" - the passing of time

"some brass and stuff" - uniformed

Observer

"Hatless, i take off my cycle-clips in awkward reverence" - respect

"Brewed God knows how long" - the one mention of God, brewed god, fermented god

Stanza 2 - uninformed, indifferent observer

"the roof looks almost new, Clean or restored? Someone would know: I don't" - dedicated congregation

"pronounced 'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant. The echoes snigger briefly" - clumsy, place impressed him,

"reflect the place not worth stopping for" - yet he did stop.

Stanza 3- moves from an account of a personal experience to address broader issues. more knowledgeable voice, ecclesiastical vocab "parchment, plate and pyx" (alliteration)

"Yet stop I did" - reflective

Moves from private "I" to the communal we and there is a corresponding shift from a descriptive to a reflective mode. "what we shall turn them into, if we shall keep a few cathedrals chronically on show"

Will Christianity ("belief") be followed by superstition ("disbelief")

S3 S4 - vaguely mocking and unconcerned for the future of churches "wondering what to look for, wondering, too, when churches fall completely out of use What shall we turn them into" - repetition of wonder, meditative

abandoned "rent-free to rain and sheep"

non-subversive tone (not trying to disrupt or make trouble)

Stanza 4 - predictions of what shall come of the church - images so vivid you almost forget that it is purely speculative. but nothing decisive, no full stops, only commas and semi colons.

"will dubious women come to make their children touch a particular stone" - superstitious rather than religious

"Power of some sort will go on"

traces the ruin of the church from the ground to the sky "grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky" - forceful

Stanza 5 - back to "I" once again - wish to knows what will become of the church "I wonder"

diverse groups of people use the church - community level - focus for many "crew"

Stanza 6 - w/o the church, "marriage and birth and death" would have to be separated, the church is where love procreation and death, the profound experiences in life, may be contemplated. the speaker is attracted to churches because they recognised the gave meaning to the three most fundamental and vital experiences in our lives.

"This special shell" - protective but fragile.

"It pleases me to stand here" - enjoyment but neutral. calm peaceful tone.

Stanza 7 - stanza 6 sets up the mood for the last stanza, breaks from the scepticism and indifference, speaks in tone of elevated seriousness. recognition of needs of human beings. everyone "has a hunger in himself to be more serious"

written in a style that is weighty, dignified and quiet removed from the earlier colloquialisms of the poem. " a serious house on a serious earth it is"

church offering happy ending.

Andrew Motion (english poet) says that the speaker in the poem "speaks as someone without faith who is trying to recover the comfort is use to give"

	Created by niamhmoynagh about 10 years ago

Larkin Note on Untitled, created by niamhmoynagh on 22/01/2014.

Untitled