Well, you see a difference without even reading it. There's no spacing between the couplets. Unless that's an artifact of the cut and paste.
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Well, you see a difference without even reading it. There's no spacing between the couplets. Unless that's an artifact of the cut and paste.
I was wondering if I should post it in Spanish too. It's Eliot Weinberger.
No, the couplets are spaced in my Spanish version.
you guys know spanish?Cool...so im not alone
:p
What are you talking about, Virgil? He does feel something ‘towards’ religion. He feels that it's an overblown, worn out piece of useless nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
How on earth you can read that from his ‘tone’ is beyond me. Perhaps you want to believe something more positive, which is fine - but perhaps Larkin didn’t.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Evidence?Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Larkin has long ceased looking for answers but you try to find some for him. Why do you assume that he wanted to change his life?
Why does he get drunk every night (the very first line), why is wretched, why is he in fear of the end. Why does he even mention religion if it is so meanless? This could have been written as a celebration of a life lived, even as an atheist, but he doesn't. To bring something up is not to dispell it in a poem of fifty lines. Just the opposite. It has nothing to do with my beliefs.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
bro·cade (br½-k³d“) n. A heavy fabric interwoven with a rich, raised design.
Does not "musical brocade" suggest it has an element of beauty and culture. Yes it is "moth-eaten" but he didn't have to call it a musical bracade. He could have said what you just said. But he didn't. I think you're the one projecting your views into the poem.
Are you serious? What difference does that make? Are you trying to reduce the poem to a nice, neat little morality tale, where the imbiber of the demon drink is punished for his own self-destructive foolishness? I’m sure the speaker, like the rest of us, has his reasons.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Virgil”
Because that’s what life is to him. He doesn’t see things the way you do.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Virgil”
Come on, Virgil - he mentions it because it’s relevant to the poem he’s written. It’s a poem, not a philosophical tract.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Virgil”
So what? That’s his right. He tells us how he feels. To criticise him for not having been more positive is to ask him to forget the reality of what he’s feeling and replace it with something you’d prefer. Do we have the right to ask that of any poet? I prefer authenticity and honesty in my poets, not a recital of John Boy Walton’s edifying philosophy. The fact that you write ‘even as an atheist’ implies that it would be unusual for an atheist to celebrate life. There’s that assumption again.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Virgil”
What are you saying here? My take is that he ‘brought it up’ (if by ‘it’ you mean religion) to condemn it for what it is. He is considering death and one of the ways human beings come to terms with death is through religion. Surely, it’s only to be expected that he would consider the religious take on things? Are you suggesting that he did it to offer us the comfort and reassurance it was unable to provide him?Quote:
Originally Posted by “Virgil”
Absolutely, Virgil – this poem is a celebration of the beauty of religion, a religion which is "created to pretend we never die." Pretence is a vital quality in any religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by “Virgil”
[QUOTE=The Unnamable]All your statements above are rediculous. Learn to read poetry. Not philosophical nonsense. Larkin is a poet, and I'm sure he's thinking like a poet. He's not a philosopher.Quote:
Are you serious? What difference does that make? Are you trying to reduce the poem to a nice, neat little morality tale, where the imbiber of the demon drink is punished for his own self-destructive foolishness? I’m sure the speaker, like the rest of us, has his reasons.
Because that’s what life is to him. He doesn’t see things the way you do.
Come on, Virgil - he mentions it because it’s relevant to the poem he’s written. It’s a poem, not a philosophical tract.
So what? That’s his right. He tells us how he feels. To criticise him for not having been more positive is to ask him to forget the reality of what he’s feeling and replace it with something you’d prefer. Do we have the right to ask that of any poet? I prefer authenticity and honesty in my poets, not a recital of John Boy Walton’s edifying philosophy. The fact that you write ‘even as an atheist’ implies that it would be unusual for an atheist to celebrate life. There’s that assumption again.
I would agree that Larkin is stating this. But good art has many layers. You don't address why Larkin calls religion a brocade, and then he doubles up on it as adds the adjetive "musical" brocade. Why?Quote:
Pretence is a vital quality in any religion.
It seems obvious that the phrase 'moth eaten musical brocade' is meant negatively. The sense of it as musical could be a way of referring to its non-rational mysticism, a pleasing rhythm that carries you along and overrides questions. It could be rather mocking.
I will try harder, oh master.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Isn’t that the point I was making? :confused: I'm not quite sure what "thinking like a poet" means here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
Could you explain any of this, please? Why are all my comments ridiculous? I state that a poet is under no obligation to be positive (as you see it). Am I wrong?
He didn’t call it ‘a brocade’; he called it “That vast moth-eaten musical brocade/ Created to pretend we never die,”. It seems obvious to me that he is being negative (even in his use of the demonstrative adjective) but he is also being fair. Brocade is not at all common in recent usage; Larkin has chosen a rather old-fashioned word to describe an institution that belongs in the past. Its primary purpose is decorative. It looks and sounds nice. He presents religion in a way that is consistent with poems like Church Going and his comment, "The Bible is a load of balls of course - but very beautiful." He can recognise its fading splendour but still dismisses it as offering nothing more than a delusion. He is no less dismissive of rationalism. There was once and might still be a grandeur about religion but the force of the comment comes from Created and pretend. 'Created' does carry positive connotations but the blatant suggestion is that man, not God, has created religion. As for the music, it’s pretty much what blp suggests –it’s the seductive organ swell of hymns, carrying us along on a tide of religious sentiment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
The title of one of his anthologies is The Less Deceived. Time and again, this idea crops up in his poetry. The truth in this poem might be terrifying but it’s one he faces squarely.
This thread is for the discussion of poems chosen every week and if you have urging personal issues, feel free to deal with those through PMs.
As for brocade... Brocade is a very heavy material and kind of stiff. I think what Larkin is refering to is the suffocating and unbending nature of religion (or of the religious?). Even though it might look nice from a distance (I don't think brocade even does that but...), it is not comfortable.
Musical> Like a chorus maybe? The unison in which the supporters of a certain religion vocalize their judgements and opinions.
Moth-eaten> To show the 'holes' in the religious belief systems? They are damaged and far from perfect.
[QUOTE=The Unnamable]He's thinking like a poet in that he's adding layers of meaning.Quote:
Isn’t that the point I was making? :confused: I'm not quite sure what "thinking like a poet" means here.
I never said he was being positive. In fact I said the opposite. What I said was that there is layer of remorse and wretchedness in his core that religion, if he so happened to believe, could have dispelled. But he can't believe because at his core he is completely rational. That feeling of wretchedness is never alleviated. That is not positive.Quote:
Could you explain any of this, please? Why are all my comments ridiculous? I state that a poet is under no obligation to be positive (as you see it). Am I wrong?
OK, butQuote:
He didn’t call it ‘a brocade’; he called it “That vast moth-eaten musical brocade/ Created to pretend we never die,”. It seems obvious to me that he is being negative
Here is where you are reading this as a philosophic tract. What's fairness have to do with anything? He was specific in using the trerm "musical bracade." Not and vast-moth eaten rag, not some some broken down empty building of a church. He was specific in his unusual diction. That is significant.Quote:
but he is also being fair.
Of course.Quote:
Brocade is not at all common in recent usage;
Ok, I don't dispute this. But pain and remorse is part of this poem. I don't know the other poems, but why bring up a subject if it's so meaningless.Quote:
Larkin has chosen a rather old-fashioned word to describe an institution that belongs in the past. Its primary purpose is decorative. It looks and sounds nice. He presents religion in a way that is consistent with poems like Church Going and his comment, "The Bible is a load of balls of course - but very beautiful." He can recognise its fading splendour but still dismisses it as offering nothing more than a delusion.
I don't disagree. But it is an elaborate image in poem sparsely filled with imagery.Quote:
He is no less dismissive of rationalism. There was once and might still be a grandeur about religion but the force of the comment comes from Created and pretend. 'Created' does carry positive connotations but the blatant suggestion is that man, not God, has created religion. As for the music, it’s pretty much what blp suggests –it’s the seductive organ swell of hymns, carrying us along on a tide of religious sentiment.
The crux of this disagreement is whether one sees an additional layer to Larkin's poem or one just sees the surface statements. The reading that Unnamable presents is for the most part a sub-set of my reading. I just see more. I have not read any other Larkin. I don't have a feel for his level of poetic skill. If this had been William Shakespeare, or T.S. Eliot, or Wallace Stevens, or William Butler Yeats, or William Blake there would be no doubt in my mind that the poet had added this layer of remorse within the undercurrent of the text. The fact that the entire tone is of wretchedness, initiated in the very first line of being drunk every night, the fact that he protests his remorse, the term "musical brocade" as discussed above, and even more, presents to me an additional layer of meaning. Normally you give the artist the benefit of the doubt and assume he intends these layers of meaning. When meanings can be added, readers attribute to the author. If Larkin really just wrote along the surface meaning, then this is a rather mundane piece. If so, then he may have even lost control of the tone. I don't feel that way. I see craft here.
Well, I was going to agree with Unnamable all the way on this point. I mean, Larkin only introduces the musical brocade image to poke holes in it after all. It doesn't seem as though he has any (even subconcious) feeling that religion is able to save him or anything of that sort. Having read the above post, however, I take your point about a poem having multiple layers. On a certain level what drives this poem is the doubts that he has about all sorts of things, the regrets that come unbidden to even the most decided minds, the contemplation of the "undiscovered country," or in this case the nothingness that awaits us. He considers the "conventional" ways of grappling with the question of death (including religion) and acknowledges the potential attraction of religion. It is important that he include such considerations if he is going to effectively make his point that none of them matter. I think what you are pointing to is something that creates the tension of the poem, the fact that Larkin is able to see the temptations of regrets and the attractions of religion even while he is insistently unable to take this view himself.
:D I remember having to read that in like middle or elementary school.
I love that poem.
One of my favorites.