You're living in "The Now". What you hear, taste, see, feel, think Now are all that there is. Appreciate Now, make the most of it. Thinking about other conditions, other times will only contaminate your experience of Now. Now will never include death.
I find this poem ultimately consoling, because it accurately articulates the most terrifying thoughts that we all share. In so doing their power becomes diminished. Beautifully read, by the way.
No rational being can fear a thing it will not feel, yet this is such that we fell it all the time. Death is one we feel all the time even before we know to comprehend. These words, this aubade, bring the agony, futility, & drudgery of seeming everyday life, yet we are made complacent by the fear that wont allow us to stand still. We simply must do to be, & continue to do so we can be, even if it's for a short while. A beautiful poem that brings thoughts to a paroxysm of emotions.
I think this is the only time I ever heard this poem spoken by someone who convincingly picks a safe path through its grammatical minefield. (This may be in part because - for some unfathomable reason - this poem is usually performed by actors and other speaking professionals, rather than poets (or real people)). Larkin belongs to a tiny group of writers who make being afraid of death part of the vivid thrill of being alive. And to the even tinier group who make recalcitrant grammar fun.
"Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood." Thats deep. Not to sound morbid but this one remains one of my fav poem.
Aubade was in the Times Literary Supplement 23rd December, 1977. He died in 1985, aged 63, of throat cancer. His last words were reported as, "I am going to the inevitable." The best contrary views are those expressed in the Rubaiyat and Ecclesiastes In short their advice is: live in the present and enjoy simple pleasures - why mar this precious life with thoughts of death?
Nursing manuals list the stages of grief people go through when facing death, both their own and those they love: Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Despair, Acceptance. This poem and Dylan Thomas's show the early stages. Larkin's brutal honesty is unique. However, when he says "we can't escape - yet can't accept", although that is true for him at the time, he is still in the early stages of grief. It appears that when death becomes inevitable it also becomes acceptable.
• Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits. (Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) 6.4311)
You're living in "The Now". What you hear, taste, see, feel, think Now are all that there is. Appreciate Now, make the most of it. Thinking about other conditions, other times will only contaminate your experience of Now. Now will never include death.
What a powerful unflinching look into the abyss,I have been changed by this poetry
Beautifully read in a lovely, rich, sonorous voice. Frighteningly honest about our doubts and fears, too.
great poem, and a truly wonderful reading by Tom O' Bedlam
Wonderful reading of Larkin's masterpiece. "When we are caught without people or drink" that line gets me every time. Thank you.
I find this poem ultimately consoling, because it accurately articulates the most terrifying thoughts that we all share. In so doing their power becomes diminished. Beautifully read, by the way.
No rational being can fear a thing it will not feel, yet this is such that we fell it all the time. Death is one we feel all the time even before we know to comprehend.
These words, this aubade, bring the agony, futility, & drudgery of seeming everyday life, yet we are made complacent by the fear that wont allow us to stand still. We simply must do to be, & continue to do so we can be, even if it's for a short while.
A beautiful poem that brings thoughts to a paroxysm of emotions.
YOUR PHILIP LARKIN IS ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!
Possibly the best reading by SpokenVerse it has been my pleasure to hear, and that is saying something.
"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once."
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)
I think this is the only time I ever heard this poem spoken by someone who convincingly picks a safe path through its grammatical minefield. (This may be in part because - for some unfathomable reason - this poem is usually performed by actors and other speaking professionals, rather than poets (or real people)).
Larkin belongs to a tiny group of writers who make being afraid of death part of the vivid thrill of being alive. And to the even tinier group who make recalcitrant grammar fun.
"Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood."
Thats deep. Not to sound morbid but this one remains one of my fav poem.
Aubade was in the Times Literary Supplement 23rd December, 1977. He died in 1985, aged 63, of throat cancer. His last words were reported as, "I am going to the inevitable."
The best contrary views are those expressed in the Rubaiyat and Ecclesiastes In short their advice is: live in the present and enjoy simple pleasures - why mar this precious life with thoughts of death?
afterthought...."I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so." .....Stephen Leacock (1869 - 1944)
Thankyou very much, this was excellent.
Nursing manuals list the stages of grief people go through when facing death, both their own and those they love: Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Despair, Acceptance. This poem and Dylan Thomas's show the early stages. Larkin's brutal honesty is unique. However, when he says "we can't escape - yet can't accept", although that is true for him at the time, he is still in the early stages of grief. It appears that when death becomes inevitable it also becomes acceptable.
There are excellent poems about accepting the prospect of death. Search my videos for Chidiock Tichborne, Omar Khayyam and William Drummond.
@Eddie123xyz Yes, but it was going to end at some time.Death is forever.
• Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits. (Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) 6.4311)
Blimey. It's a bit bleak. Although strangely comforting.