The poem
When I see a couple of kids And guess he's fucking her and she's Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives-- Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if Anyone looked at me, forty years back, And thought, That'll be the life; No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide What you think of the priest. He And his lot will all go down the long slide Like free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass, And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
Here, Larkin cynically shows an older narrator looking at the youth of the present and suspecting that other older people envy them. He wonders if this is something older people did when they saw him as a youth. In the end, he thinks of windows high above, beyond which is nothing, which symbolizes the hopelessness of going through a life constantly looking ahead or to the past and thinking something more must be there.
Part of what makes this a poem is the inadequacy of prose to convey it. There are nuances in almost every word. What are the "high windows" really about? Where would such windows usually be seen? Why does the poem have that title? Why does the first stanza erupt with such coarse language? What is the long slide? What is paradise, again? I think, before declaring the author in this instance to be cynical, some of…
Read the whole commentPart of what makes this a poem is the inadequacy of prose to convey it. There are nuances in almost every word.
What are the "high windows" really about? Where would such windows usually be seen? Why does the poem have that title? Why does the first stanza erupt with such coarse language? What is the long slide? What is paradise, again?
I think, before declaring the author in this instance to be cynical, some of these questions need to be answered.
I think the poem to have a more dazed and thoughtful tone, than one of cynicism. The young couple, surmised to be in an ongoing sexual relationship, is little more than a distraction to the narrator (not necessarily the poet!).
There is a tension that buds and begins to bloom, having alluded to birth control, with the line, "Bonds and gestures pushed to one side..." It begins to be clear, here, that the order of things has changed. This is what "old" refers to... not that the narrator is old and regrets it; only that so much else seems to be alarmingly new. Sex, in the narrator's prime of life, led to child-rearing. Faith and sexual mores were part of that life. To the narrator's present perception, this has ceased to be so.
I don't know if the "long slide" is a reference to anything in particular or not. But the phrase is used twice: once as "down the long slide to happiness" and again as "down the long slide like free bloody birds." "Happiness," however, is for the young. The priest "and his lot" inherit the simile, "like free bloody birds."
The disturbing juxtaposition of tonalities indicates a complete breakdown in the narrator's system of beliefs and faith. This is made more poignant and explicit by the reference to priests, and, ultimately, high windows. For there are few other places that one will see high windows, than in a church.
There may be an implicit assumption of knowledge wherein the narrator takes as common knowledge the practice of "looking up" to find God. But here, the high windows show only the "deep blue sky" (a bit of a cliché on Larkin's part, I'm afraid), which shows... nothing... nowhere... and is "endless"...
But, before judging that the narrator (again, not necessarily the poet!) is atheist, or has lost faith, or is in some antithetical stance as concerns God, it is necessary to look at the words used. "Nothing" -- no form. "Nowhere" -- cannot be pinned down in location and defined. "Endless" -- eternal.
It is not words that come to the narrator's mind, when he considers the "long slide like free bloody birds" of the priests. It is the high windows. It is the "sun-comprehending glass," which may, in its mute way, be said to "comprehend" something which is utterly incomprehensible to it, for the simple reason that it lets the light pass through.
I can sometimes too easily read more into a poem than is there, but it could be that there is a note of hope, at the end of this. In recognizing more completely that an old order of things has passed away, room is made in the narrator's mind for a more contemporary, more accurate conceptualization of God.
Be that the case or no, this is a poem about change, and faith.
he is psycho-y cant he write a coherant sentence! wot a fool!
Foehn is right. But so is Ed, and so is mc ryle. Poetry is about communication and contemplation. Everyone must take their own personal views away from a poem in order for it to succeed. The only way for a poem to truly fail is for it to not inspire any thoughts, whatever they may be. That being said, poetry can still be misunderstood. Often, it is misunderstood. In this particular poem, foehn is probably more in…
Read the whole commentFoehn is right. But so is Ed, and so is mc ryle. Poetry is about communication and contemplation. Everyone must take their own personal views away from a poem in order for it to succeed. The only way for a poem to truly fail is for it to not inspire any thoughts, whatever they may be.
That being said, poetry can still be misunderstood. Often, it is misunderstood. In this particular poem, foehn is probably more in line with the author's thoughts. There is a definite change in tone in the last stanza that does give the poem a sense of hope, albeit, a weak one. The high windows do resemble church windows and I believe that Larkin is actually qouted as saying church windows are the windows he was refering to.
As for the infinite blue space, this must be compared to the uncertainity prevalent in several of Larkin's poems concerning religion, Church Going for one. In Larkin's poems, religion and God are often depicted as ungraspable senses of companionship that sometimes actually make him more lonely than before contemplating them. But this does not mean the NARRATORS in his poems are atheist. In fact, a better way to look at it, is to realize the contemplation of religion in itself is hope, beleif. Larkin's poems usually include a disdainful tone toward the lack of truth and lack of care in the world. But in his "better" poems, there is usually an altuistic want to supercede the percieved worldly quagmire in search of true companionship. Most of the time the poem searches for this in religion. The catch is that religion is not tangible to the narrator and is often hard to find, leaving the narrator meekly hoping but largely uncertain.
Basically, High Windows, and several of Larkin's other poems, attack the same doubts that most believers in religion face: "How do I know that in a world where so many other things are involved that my beliefs are supremely correct?" This poem is doubting definitly, but most people doubt at some point. To declare this poem as simple cynicism is a great injustice to teh author and the poem's depth.
The use of "High Windows" in the title could be Larkin exploring the idea of death and that "the deep blue air" that shows "nothing" and is "endless" is heaven linking in with the church ideas below
Surely the high windows that Larkin writes of are representative of a place after death that humans are unable to reach, a paradise that humans cannot and will never reach because they are uncapable of living without sin and resisiting temptation. The almost surreal language in the last two lines of the last stanza poses the question that if humans are unable to reach this paradise (or whatever it may be), can such a place really exist? As how can this place truly exist if noone has been there and noone will?
This poem is about the loss of faith and traditional values, and the realization that, for Larkin, there is nothing to replace it. He imagines how happy young people must feel not to be accountable to any moral authority. But the alternative is emptiness.
Bla, bla, bla. His flat had high windows. He looked through these windows, to look outside. To see what?--sky. Uncomprehending, meaningless, empty, blue sky. All is meaningless because we're going to die. Everything else is distraction from that point. The speaker realizes that--the only logical response is his--useless contemplation of the nothing out there.
My interpretation of the poem is that it’s about how every generation is freer than the previous one from the bonds of such things as religion, marriage, god and chivalry, as they become aware of how superficial all this is. The persona Larkin adopts is that of a member of an older generation who realises how his life has been suppressed by these things, and how the next generation are having a better time, being…
Read the whole commentMy interpretation of the poem is that it’s about how every generation is freer than the previous one from the bonds of such things as religion, marriage, god and chivalry, as they become aware of how superficial all this is. The persona Larkin adopts is that of a member of an older generation who realises how his life has been suppressed by these things, and how the next generation are having a better time, being younger and freer from these bonds, creating their own rules. Here is my analogy of the poem:
The narrator’s train of thought about all this is triggered off by the sighting of two “kids”, who he suspects are having care-free pre-marital sex. He proclaims his jealousy of their freedom quite simply with the lines “I know this is paradise everyone old has dreamed of all their lives”.
He then goes on to make an interesting comparison of the bonds to “an outdated combine harvester”. Something that has processed and striped us but now is pushed aside, outdated.
The next thought that enters the narrators head is whether or not anyone observed him in the same light when he was the same age, at how he didn’t live in constant fear of hell and god, and of course the priest. The narrator imagines this observer from an older generation thinking that the narrator and his generation will “go down the long slide [life] like free bloody birds”.
Then the last part of the poem, the high windows section, is the narrator’s final reflection, making an analogy of his situation to that of someone stuck indoors looking longingly out at a clear blue sky. The “sun comprehending glass” is the narrator’s new found state of mind, his understanding of why the younger generation is better off. His state of mind to their situation is like the glass is to the sun/outdoors, understanding the other for what it is, for its true identity as a better place to be. And then beyond the glass, “the deep blue air, that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.” This is quite simply freedom, and that is what the narrator is looking longingly out on, that is where the younger generations are.
That was my personal interpretation of the poem, but it could also be seen to have a “grass is always greener on the other side” analogy, saying how all generations will feel like this in their old age as they approach death, and instead of regretting what happened during your life, you should look forward to the mystery of what happens when you die. This afterlife is “the deep blue air, that shows nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”
Another interpretation is that the last stanza is Larkin realising how irrelevant such matters such as the apparent immorality of the younger generations are in the grand scheme of things and also to God. The religious theme in the poem cannot be ignored. In the last line of the poem, it supports this: Nothing - God is not a physical presence. Nowhere - God is omnipresent and therefore is nowhere at any one time. Endless - God lasts forever. He always has been here and will always will be.
Surely the 'long slide' referred to is ambiguous. It sounds like a helter skelter, which is fun but normally a long slide is a slippery slope downwards - to hell, not paradise. Maybe this paradise is only an illusion.
What a cynicall git Larkin is!
Don't you hate it when people post comments saying that larkin's just an old git? For God's sake, just look at To the Sea, The Trees, Livings 2, Friday Night, Dublinesque, the card players etc etc etc for a look at a celebratory,optimistic Larkin!
because i have not properly evovled yet, i am still in monkey form, and have a hunchback with a massive head... i dont understand the poem, please explain to me in monkey language - ooh ooh ah ah
. Alternatively the last stanze could mean, that we look up wards through high windows , such as stain glass windows in church, but there is nothing, no god , no heaven , life is endless and this is what we can not comprehend as humans. Remeber Larkin was a cynic!
the sky at the end of the poem could be interpreted in different ways:
because these kids are freely having sex, people are disregarding god and their religious values and as a result, larkin looks up to where god is supposed to be and sees nothing. questioning the existence of god.
or:
all the cynical bonds and stigmas of premarital sex have been broken and this has been represented by a clear, infernite, free sky. emphasising liberation. also could he be lying in bed looking up at high windows? in the original draft larkin does say something about lying and thinking...
SUCH NIALISTIC THOUGHTS FROM YOU D
hello,i dont have many friends,due to the disgusting smell which rises from my face,i love philip larkin,his skin is moist and i love to lick it with my left toe.I look like a cow and it is rather weird,but i think nothing of it.Please leave a comment back if your'e name is susan.Thank you.I love bumfun.Amen
i wrote more than that... it got deleted somehow... oh well. thanks
i think that Larkin is commenting on the loss of religion in today's society. by equating paradise (eden) with fu*king with a diaphragm, he is making a parody of paradise. he is telling us that God is the higher meaning to human existence, and with a loss of belief in him, we become mere physical objects. Lovemaking becomes purely physical, and if you look to the last stanza, the heavens too becomes "nothing" but blue air. The high windows represent heaven/religion/god/true paradise that we, without faith, cannot reach.
likin the larkin machine! what a beast!! his poetry got us so ecstatically enthusiasticaly ginger (thanx bex) the first stanza presents an atmosphere of detatchment. that is all. Goodbye. yep bye then.
Hi!
Just found this site and thought you might be able to help me?
In Philip Larkin's High Windows Anthology what significance do 'windows' have to the rest of the Anthology? I feel that the windows show us life in all forms; and if we are only observing then we become seperate from life and the world. So, in a way the windows become barriers. Am I on the right track or have i totally got the wrong end of the stick? help!
I think high windows can also be a symbol of church because churches are known for their tall windows. Stained glass or not, as soon as I read "High Windows" I thought of a church. So what mary said about religion might in fact be exacty what the poem is getting at although in church (temple, mosque), you don't look into the outside world through the windows, you look into the world of god. Just a thought.
shalom
anna
I'm sorry, but... Is it weird that the first thing I thought of when I read High Windows was windows high up in a building that are good for jumping out of?
I suddenly thought of High Windows today. I haven't read it for at least 30 years, but it sometimes comes back to me if I feel 'cut off' from vitality for some reason. High windows are found in institutions, including educational ones, which should be about freeing the spirit, nourishing the imaginatioItn and individual creativity. They rarely are. It's a disturbing and unsettling poem which haunts for years.
i always thought of high church windows, as previously mentioned, and the symbolic nature of them allowing larkin to express a feeling of being trapped, almost trapped by belief just a thought though.
The final stanza makes me think of Wittgensteins maxim that 'What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.' Or possibly Simone Weil on the nature of spirituality: 'If an island completely cut off had never had any other than blind inhabitants, light would be for them what the supernatural is for us. One is tempted to think at first that for them it would be nothing, that by creating for their use a system…
Read the whole commentThe final stanza makes me think of Wittgensteins maxim that 'What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.' Or possibly Simone Weil on the nature of spirituality: 'If an island completely cut off had never had any other than blind inhabitants, light would be for them what the supernatural is for us. One is tempted to think at first that for them it would be nothing, that by creating for their use a system of physics with all theory of light left out, one would be giving them a complete explanation of their world. For light offers no obstacle, exerts no pressure, is weightless, cannot be eaten. For them, it is absent. But it cannot be left out of account. By it alone the trees and plants reach towards the sky in spite of gravity. By it alone seeds, fruits, all things we eat, are ripened.'
I think most of the readers got it perfectly wrong, because the poem is neither about religion nor about losing one’s religion or such like. It’s a sad poem, as “everyone old” is meant to be Larkin himself (in 1974, when the book was published, he was 52), and he complains that, when he was young, having sex was thought to be sinful, there were “bonds and gestures” (line 5) to forbid sex before marriage, and…
Read the whole commentI think most of the readers got it perfectly wrong, because the poem is neither about religion nor about losing one’s religion or such like. It’s a sad poem, as “everyone old” is meant to be Larkin himself (in 1974, when the book was published, he was 52), and he complains that, when he was young, having sex was thought to be sinful, there were “bonds and gestures” (line 5) to forbid sex before marriage, and masturbation was connected with fear of hell (“or sweating in the dark / About hell and that”, lines 12 – 13), and furthermore you had to be careful not to tell too much when confessing to a priest. So he looks at a couple of young ones and believes that they are able to go down a slide (comparable to a children’s slide on a playground) to joy or even eternal bliss or happiness (children do go down slides because doing so is pure fun or joy). Then he wonders whether some forty years ago, when he, Larkin, was young, some older person might have looked at him with similar thoughts of the young ones being able to lead happier lives than “everyone old”. At last there’s the image of the “high windows”: their glass catches the light and the warmth of the sun, which means happiness (as everybody feels happy in the sun), but from the outside you can’t see into this happiness, you just see a deep blue, which is not a real physical object (as happiness itself is no physical object), and as it is not physically real, it’s also limitless, but the important thing to Larkin is: he is kept outside, he is one of the “everyone old” who cannot participate in this happiness or joy. (There’s another poem in the same volume, called “Annus Mirabilis” (= year to admire, which is 1963, the year of the Beatles’ first LP), which tells a similar story.)
To anyone who's interested...
I have an interpretation as to what the "long slide" is all about. Larkin says that it is "everyone young going down the long slide" which means that the young are not prepared to take on adult responsbilities (i.e. sex)..they are simply too young and naive. The "long slide" is made for adults and it is therefore inapptopriate for what Larkin thinks are essentially just children, to be having sex before marriage...regardless of new contraceptives.
For me this is a shout of hope for the future but with a sensation of vertigo from the perspective of someone who feels he is being left behind by it.
This is paradise, the freedom the previous generation has worked for but has not been able to take part in themselves because of the rules which governed their relationships. The people who would have been the priests in the world to come will be taken up in the shout of joy instead. And together everyone will fall into the deep blue sky of the future which the poet is denied.
R Glabotki from Germany got it right, most readers that commented on High Windows got it wrong, including Richard. The oddest thing he said indicates he thinks Larkins reference to "...sweating in the dark," refers to masturbation. The reference is to the "long slide" of moral change seperating one generation from another.
This poem is about change in the society there's a gab between old and young and he can't reach it there are high windows
No, NO, NO!!! You guys are getting it all wrong!!!
High Windows is partly a reflection of Larkin's views of society and how it values religious teachings. Larkin is commenting on how times have changed and sex is common and free.
When Larkin speaks of the young going down the slide, he is saying that because they are doing what the traditional religious society would refer to as "sinning", they will eventually goo down the slide of death- leading to Hell.
The high windows stand in between earth and the beyond and what Larkin is basically saying is that beyond earth, beyond the high windows- there is nothing...
I think in the poam "Toads" by Philip Larkin is his way of complaining about his life. The "Toads" in his life I beleive are work, lack of money, and something "inside himself" is either his lack of charm or his unfortuanate appearance (look up the picture). Basically this is a poem about his resentment of his life. I don't know I think it's a stupid poem and isn't worth reading, but unfortuantly my English teacher diagrees.
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When I read the poem I was a bit upset! well, I personally think that when Larkin talks about the couple of kids making sex, is refering to the changes in the society, after the Second World War: religious changes, social changes and above all, cultural ones. In the 2 stanza, he refers to the old generations that cannot appreciate the feedom of the youth, of the new generation anymore because they had a lot of bonds…
Read the whole commentWhen I read the poem I was a bit upset!
well, I personally think that when Larkin talks about the couple of kids making sex, is refering to the changes in the society, after the Second World War: religious changes, social changes and above all, cultural ones.
In the 2 stanza, he refers to the old generations that cannot appreciate the feedom of the youth, of the new generation anymore because they had a lot of bonds and thresholds!
Are also important the last 2 stanzas when he talks about God who doesn't exist anymore, the priest who lost his importance and he cannot be a guide for human being!Both are like free bloody birds!
The HIGH WINDOWS in the last part of the poem, can be the a kind of telescope through that we can see and undestand a lot of things, and behind these windows, there is the deep blue air, the knowledge!
That's my personal opinion!
High Windows
Rushka's idea that the long slide may be the road to hell is interesting, but a long shot. More likely the long slide is the road to death but also, as someone said, a children's playground slide. We're all headed downward, but for some of us the slide is a lot easier because nowadays everybody young gets laid. Larkin is too old to take advantage of that (sigh), but wonders whether when he was young older folks envied him for not having to worry about punishment by God for naughty thoughts. But the final part is simply baffling to me. It's a vision of emptiness and indifference perhaps, the indifference of the universe to the course of human lives. I don't know. Keep the ideas coming!
Spare us please.
"That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die"
Aubade.
I'm sorry Rushka but that's what Larkin thought of christianity. The long slide is a joyous abandonment of religious nonsense.
"No God any more, or sweating in the dark"
No more shame, or control by a parasitic clergy, just freedom. It may not chime with your view of the world but I'm completely certain Larkin would have been horrified by your interpretation of his work. There is nothing between the windows and the sky (heaven) because there is no god.
God and Larkin
James - I think you completely miss the irony in this poem, and in Aubade which you quote from. Larkin was cynical about religion, but he was not an atheist. A sense of the numinous comes through in many of his poems, and he was equally cynical about materialism and science. I think he is a more complex poet than you give him credit for.
In later life, Larkin kept a bible open on his bedroom table so he could read it while he was dressing in the morning. He enjoyed catching out more liberal members of the clergy on points of theology.
dis poem right quick
yo this fool Paul Stebbing dont know nothin. he is as ignant as you can get. he dont know poetry and Paul, get your dumb behind off this forumn. your disgracing the art of poetry and everyone that has to read your dumb filthy comments.moron
THE REAL MEANING
aight unless you an ignant fool or hate african americas you alweady know the real meaning of this poem right here. Larken was writing about the Black struggle in America and how the white man tries to keep us down. Clearly, this poem is an attack of the racist attitude of haters in America. yall welcome