General Introduction
Church Going is Larkin's masterpiece when it comes to his poetry. Larkin rejected his own 22 pages long draft of Church Going and then came up with the one both you and I know. The poem is a part of a poetic collection known as The Less Deceived. Church Going, well, features the Church going of the poet. But in-depth, it is a poetic discussion between faith and scepticism, a rather common subject for the Post-war generation. Larkin was influenced by Eliot's play, "Murder in the Cathedral".
Development of Situation
The poem begins as soon as the addressor gets into an old but abandoned church. The speaker lets the door shut and takes a look at the sacred things spread around him in the church. After a little break, he moves to an altar and reads some lines. Then, he walks back into the church and places sixpence in the collection box.
The addressor is in a fix whether he should consider this place worth visiting or not. But this is not the first time he has visited the churches. He wonders what will happen to the churches around the globe when there will be no believers left? Maybe churches shall be transformed into museums or their doors shall be left open for the sheep.
Then the narrator ponders over the question that what will happen when there will be no person following any kind of religion. What will be the condition of the last religious person on earth? Will he be a stern follower of his religion? Will he be bored like the addressor in the church who entered without knowing what he was doing.
Lastly, the speaker admits that he is relieved at the presence of the church. After all, it is a serious place to find answers to the serious questions like "Why we are brought here?" and "Where we shall go after death? ". He concludes that if organized churches go away, religion/spirituality shall stay there in pursuit of answering those serious questions.
Themes
Religion vs. Spirituality
The most prominent theme of this poem is humanity's penduluming between religion and spirituality. It is obvious that the poet does not endorse religion. Religion is a set of ideas in which serious questions about the existence of life are answered with a specific set of beliefs. Spiritualism, on the other hand, explores answers to those questions on a deeper level by adding a mix of more questions. But Larkin asserts that religion may decay with the passage of time but spirituality shall bring people close to their religion in order to get a comprehensive answer to the serious questions of life.
Time and Nature
Another notable theme of this poem is how time and Nature treat mortal humans. The poem suggests that time is short for humans to learn and strive for the answers to those serious questions. Furthermore, the poet indirectly puts forward that people have to connect with Nature to get answers because Nature is immortal (from a poetic sense) and connecting with something immortal can provide answers to the mortals.
Figurative Analysis
The poem contains a number of literary devices. For instance, Larkin refrains from denoting towards the altar directly. Instead, he uses a metaphor "some brass and stuff/Up at the holy end". The title of this poem is an irony as Church Going signifies a regular attendance made towards the Church. However, the title is ironically used to demonstrate the decline in religious activities. While the symbol of "small and neat organ" is used for the refinement of the middle-class parishioners.
Setting and Imagery
The poem takes place in the ruins of an old and abandoned church. The images used in this poem give ample impression on the decline of religion and religious activities in England. The images may include like "sprawlings of flowers", "looks almost new", "Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases", "Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky", and "A shape less recognisable each week".
Structural Analysis
The poem is composed of sixty-three lines. It is further divided into seven stanzas of nine lines each. The rhyme scheme of this poem per stanza is ABABCAECE. While the rhythmic pattern of this poem is iambic pentameter. The poem boasts somewhat ironic tone while the diction used in this poem is simple.
Conclusion
Church Going is a poem that is not entirely about religion as Larkin himself asserts,
It isn’t religious at all. Religion surely means that the affairs of this world are under divine surveillance, and so on, and I go to some pains to point out that I don’t bother about that sort of thing, that I’m deliberately ignorant of it: ‘ “Up at the holy end”, for instance.
Similarly, the poem does not exhibit the atheistic outlook. Rather it draws a line between religion and spirituality to find answers to the serious questions about the existence of human life.
