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CHURCH GOING
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25 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 12, 2020
A disconnected, apathetic visitor gets into a church and permits the door to shut. He is sure that there is nothing going on inside the church and that it is just like any other church.
The standard supplies of the church - matting, seats, stone and a few books are found. The flowers that were cut for Sunday service have turned brown now. There is some brass and other related objects on the holy end of the church. There is also a diminutive organ that has a tidy well-maintained appearance about it.
More than all these tangible articles, the poet is affected by the mildewed, unignorable quiet that has been there, God alone knows how long. The visitor is vulnerable and gets rid of his cycle-clips in embarrassed calm which is perchance the result of the remarkable ambiance.
The visitor looks at the church at first, as a mere building, a piece of architectural import. He gets on to lectern with a scatterbrained mind-set and emulates the vicar's tone, “Here endeth". Although he leaves after donating a petite amount, saying the place does not warrant consideration, he does not stop recurrently. The question that logically crops up is why he should stop there so often,if the place is not worth stopping for.
Whenever the visitor stops at this church, he ends up speculating, what to look for. He also conjectures for "what purpose” the churches will be used when they fall into neglect. He considers that perchance a few cathedrals will be maintained as atypical replicas of churches.
The parchment, plate and pyx will be left in one piece in these churches and the rest of the churches will be opened to rain and will be used for housing sheep free of rent. He asks if the people will evade them as inauspicious places. This question perhaps arises from his cynicism that it may become a haunted place. Women with dubious characters may come to this church or bring their children to touch the particular stone. It might become a centre of surreptitious, credulous sects or rites. Even these gullible cults will die some day, like the religious belief.
The supposed thinking about the future results of such incredulity is carried over-into the fifth stanza. So the church even may lose its form step by step, with the overgrowth of grass, 'weedy pavement brambles buttress, sky.'
The poet contemplates over who might be the last person to get into the church with faith in religion. It may be a mason who wants to see what 'rood-lofts,' or some lover of the antique or one who is interested in knowing how Christmas was celebrated with 'gown-and-bands and organ pipes and myrrh.
The potential visitor may very well be a man like the narrator, one who is uninterested stiff and is uninformed of faith. He may be drawn to the church because it has been a place where people have been married, been confirmed in their faith, Christianity, and given funeral service. The speaker himself is ill-bred of the value of church-going but it pleases him to stand here in calm, regardless.
The final stanza elucidates the perpetual worth of the church. It is a solemn place on earth because man meets here all significant and formal occasions in life like birth, baptism, marriage and death (funeral), occasions which decide man's providence. Such a place can never become outmoded, as someone or the other will choose to be more staid than the others and enter the portals of the church to become wiser even though there would be only the churchyard around with many tombstones.
The poem is an expression of poet's yearning for a welfare state. The poem provides the likeness of a commonplace Englishman who is not very much concerned about religion or church worship. The poem shows that the magnitude of the church is progressively waning day-by-day.
Church Going is autobiographical in ethos. An obligatory attribute of the social milieu of this poem is the marked and universal nose-dive in ecclesiastical turnout at churches after 1945 (the year of the end World War II). At the opening of 1950, a very very emaciated percentage of population was church-goers. The poem Church Going embodies what may be called secular Anglicanism which grants that, though conviction may be downhill, the spirit of convention represented by the English Church cannot pass away.
The standard supplies of the church - matting, seats, stone and a few books are found. The flowers that were cut for Sunday service have turned brown now. There is some brass and other related objects on the holy end of the church. There is also a diminutive organ that has a tidy well-maintained appearance about it.
More than all these tangible articles, the poet is affected by the mildewed, unignorable quiet that has been there, God alone knows how long. The visitor is vulnerable and gets rid of his cycle-clips in embarrassed calm which is perchance the result of the remarkable ambiance.
The visitor looks at the church at first, as a mere building, a piece of architectural import. He gets on to lectern with a scatterbrained mind-set and emulates the vicar's tone, “Here endeth". Although he leaves after donating a petite amount, saying the place does not warrant consideration, he does not stop recurrently. The question that logically crops up is why he should stop there so often,if the place is not worth stopping for.
Whenever the visitor stops at this church, he ends up speculating, what to look for. He also conjectures for "what purpose” the churches will be used when they fall into neglect. He considers that perchance a few cathedrals will be maintained as atypical replicas of churches.
The parchment, plate and pyx will be left in one piece in these churches and the rest of the churches will be opened to rain and will be used for housing sheep free of rent. He asks if the people will evade them as inauspicious places. This question perhaps arises from his cynicism that it may become a haunted place. Women with dubious characters may come to this church or bring their children to touch the particular stone. It might become a centre of surreptitious, credulous sects or rites. Even these gullible cults will die some day, like the religious belief.
The supposed thinking about the future results of such incredulity is carried over-into the fifth stanza. So the church even may lose its form step by step, with the overgrowth of grass, 'weedy pavement brambles buttress, sky.'
The poet contemplates over who might be the last person to get into the church with faith in religion. It may be a mason who wants to see what 'rood-lofts,' or some lover of the antique or one who is interested in knowing how Christmas was celebrated with 'gown-and-bands and organ pipes and myrrh.
The potential visitor may very well be a man like the narrator, one who is uninterested stiff and is uninformed of faith. He may be drawn to the church because it has been a place where people have been married, been confirmed in their faith, Christianity, and given funeral service. The speaker himself is ill-bred of the value of church-going but it pleases him to stand here in calm, regardless.
The final stanza elucidates the perpetual worth of the church. It is a solemn place on earth because man meets here all significant and formal occasions in life like birth, baptism, marriage and death (funeral), occasions which decide man's providence. Such a place can never become outmoded, as someone or the other will choose to be more staid than the others and enter the portals of the church to become wiser even though there would be only the churchyard around with many tombstones.
The poem is an expression of poet's yearning for a welfare state. The poem provides the likeness of a commonplace Englishman who is not very much concerned about religion or church worship. The poem shows that the magnitude of the church is progressively waning day-by-day.
Church Going is autobiographical in ethos. An obligatory attribute of the social milieu of this poem is the marked and universal nose-dive in ecclesiastical turnout at churches after 1945 (the year of the end World War II). At the opening of 1950, a very very emaciated percentage of population was church-goers. The poem Church Going embodies what may be called secular Anglicanism which grants that, though conviction may be downhill, the spirit of convention represented by the English Church cannot pass away.
January 15, 2021
A poem about longing for something more and not finding it but feeling some reverence for a dilapidated church surrounded by the dead that at least provides the conditions to search vainly for something more.
June 3, 2017
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do
November 22, 2017
There is a lot to unpack here and the dichotomy is an argument that goes on and on. Most people I know are not able to discuss calmly, much less rationally.
And perhaps that was Larkin's intention.
And perhaps that was Larkin's intention.
October 3, 2020
An Atheist approach to the institution of Church
March 16, 2022
Not a banger
September 5, 2011
It was a short poem by Philip Larkin about a guy going to church for the last time. Really wasn't much to it. There may have been more to the story then I seen but I don't really care that much about poems so I didn't see much.
January 17, 2016
This poem has many layers. Not only is it about a man visiting a church (church going) but also about the disappearance of religion during that time. He is wondering what will happen to religion, the believers and also the non-believers(since they won't have anything to not believe in anymore)
April 28, 2016
What I love about his poem is the speaker's commentary on searching for meaning. Even though the poem is pessimistic about religious belief as a whole I can't help but feel hope that no matter what the speaker's feelings other's will keep searching for meaning and answers in religious edifices.
June 12, 2020
I could reread this poem a million times and still be just as fascinated by it. An incredible poetic achievement.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews