'What Will Survive of Us is Love': Larkin's 'An Arundel Tomb'

Explore how Larkin depicts love in this poem. 

By Margaret

Larkin begins the poem, ‘An Arundel Tomb’, by describing a 14^th century tomb in Chichester Cathedral, for which the poem is named: ‘Side by side their faces blurred, /The earl and countess lie in stone’. Immediately, the fact that the stone reproductions of this dead husband and wife are lying ‘Side by side’ conveys an image of tragic romance, of undying love. Yet Larkin is neutral, simply describing the monument, without commenting on its meaning.

            In the second stanza, Larkin focuses on the most interesting aspect of the ‘Arundel Tomb’: ‘One sees, with a sharp tender shock, /His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.’ This sweet detail seems almost misplaced in the cynical, nihilistic world of Larkin’s poetry. His use of the phrase ‘sharp tender shock’ perfectly relates the surprise with which a visitor to the Cathedral would notice such a detail. Larkin seems to be portraying love as just that: ‘tender’ and sweet.

            Later on, in the third stanza, Larkin describes the statues’ ‘faithfulness in effigy’. This implies that loyalty in love is admirable. However, the previous line subverts that idea: ‘They would not think to lie so long’. The double meaning of the word ‘lie’ denotes both the position of ‘The earl and countess[’]’ bodies and the possibility that their post-mortem position does not reflect the relationship they had while living.       Likewise, Larkin alludes to ‘A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace’. This suggests that the real ‘sweet… grace’ of the monument is due to a craftsmen’s mercenary carvings, rather than a genuine reflection of their love. Larkin even states that the craftsmanship has been ‘Thrown off in helping to prolong/the Latin names around the base’, insinuating that the organisers of this ‘Tomb’ were more concerned about displaying the noble titles of the dead, not their relationship.

            Similarly, Larkin uses the phrase ‘supine stationary voyage’ to describe the ‘earl and countess[’]’ journey through history. Interestingly, the word ‘supine’ means both to lie face upwards and a failure to protest due to moral weakness. This wordplay suggests that the likely dull, stale spirit of their real relationship cannot overcome the passionate appearance of their supine statues. Larkin seems to be saying here that love is simply a mask one can don, that even the most charming depiction of love may be a façade. 

            Furthermore, Larkin then links back to the idea of ‘faithfulness’ with the trans-stanza line ‘Rigidly they/Persisted… through… time’. However, due to the implications of what we have read previously in this poem, the notion of ‘[Persisting]’ through time no longer seems to refer to love. Larkin uses ecclesiastical imagery in this same stanza to point out that this is a ‘Tomb’ and a statue, not two living people: ‘Bone-riddled ground’, ‘up the paths/The endless altered people came’. Love is a tourist attraction, Larkin seems to say, an exhibition for the people; this idea is repeated and expanded upon in the last stanza of this poem.

            Moreover, Larkin describes the Arundel ‘lovers’ as ‘helpless in the hollow of/An unarmorial age’. This is a reference to the modern world, with no coats of armour or heraldic symbols. The people in (or on) the tomb are anachronisms in today’s age; they serve to delight the public but their ‘scrap of history’ is not understood. People like the idea of ‘universal’ love, but how can we really know whether the ‘Arundel Tomb’ displays true love or not? It is ‘a trough/Of smoke’ Larkin says, a fleeting, ephemeral image, frozen in time, of which ‘Only an attitude remains.’ 

            The last stanza subtly shifts its focus, seeming to encapsulate all the ideas of the poem in a few lines. ‘Time has transfigured them into/Untruth’ is a powerful statement which leaves little to the imagination. Their love is a lie, Larkin is saying; their tender affection is no longer ‘just a detail friends would see’, but is now ‘Untruth’. It deceives the thousands of pilgrims who visit it, the last remnant of the ‘old tenantry’, for though the ages of history have not changed the ‘Tomb’, they have changed everything else.

            Likewise, we see Larkin’s characteristic cynicism in the final sentence of ‘An Arundel Tomb’: ‘The stone fidelity/They hardly meant has come to be/Their final blazon’. Again, this is connected to the running theme of ‘faithfulness’ and whether it inherently entails love. The Arundel ‘lovers’ probably had little love for each other in reality, yet now that is all they are known for. The word ‘blazon’ fits with the imagery of ‘smoke’ from the last stanza, enhancing the idea of a contrast in appearance between the origin and consequence of a feeling. 

            The poem ends with an intriguingly false sense of optimism: ‘The stone fidelity/… has come to… prove/Our almost-instinct almost true:/What will survive of us is love.’ The final line initially seems to be a genuine and heart-felt truth. However, the previous line ironically subverts this, showing us how much we want to believe that ‘What will survive of us is love’. But it is only our ‘almost-instinct’ and it is only ‘almost true’. Essentially, Larkin is saying that ‘love’ is a lie we tell ourselves, a beautiful façade we pretend we don’t know is fake. The ‘Arundel Tomb’ is fascinating to us because we have nothing authentic to compare it to. ‘Love’ is in fact ‘Untruth’ and ‘identity’ is subject to ‘Time’. ‘What will survive of us’ is not ‘love’, but whatever image the ages of the world shape us to become.