Windows in George Herbert and Philip Larkin: A Study of Poetic Metaphor

ABSTRACT In ‘Bridge and Door,’ Simmel makes a comment regarding the function of the window. He argues that the window acts as ‘a connection of inner space with the external world.’ He argues that ‘the teleological emotion with respect to the window is directed almost exclusively from inside to outside.’ Simmel speaks of the window as a mediating entity, a structural attribute that separates. With Simmel’s comments in mind, this essay examines two poems: one from the seventeenth-century by George Herbert, and another from the twentieth-century by Philip Larkin. The essay looks at the different ways the outside is brought inside in Herbert’s religious poem ‘The Windows’ and in Larkin’s poem ‘High Windows.’ The issue at hand considers what appears to be Larkin’s modern existential angst, for as Herbert’s windows symbolise the outside entity of God being brought in to the hearts of the congregation, beyond Larkin’s windows is blue sky that is ‘Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.’ The comparative poetic study demonstrates that the modern window metaphor has taken a new shape. In the modern world, the mediating power of the window has lost the power of mediating faith. Larkin’s poem exemplifies a modern angst absent in Herbert.