[Max Goodman]

These two lines—Larkin’s “What will survive of us is love” and Auden’s “We must love one another or die”—may be the most well-known lines of poetry about love written in the past century. But what’s remarkable about them both is that the poets who wrote them agonized over them, were conflicted and critical of their own lines. Both Larkin and Auden eventually tried to distance themselves from their original unmediated utterances.
--Ron Rosenbaum

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/t....singl e.html

[Orwn Acra]

In my printing of Auden's Collected, the famous line does not appear in "September 1, 1939". It is an early, maybe first, edition. From what I've always understood, Auden added the line later, in a subsequent draft, but then took it out when its power overflowed the brim of the poem. Rosenbaum only mentions Auden putting the line back in, slightly altered for the worse, for an edition of the Collected, but does not state which edition.

I've always linked those lines together. They are immortal.

[Chris Childers]

I've always thought it was very clear that the Larkin line is undermined by its context: it's our "almost instinct," proved "almost true."

As for that, the Vergil line is equally susceptible to an ironic reading in context: omnia vincit Amor is spoken by Cornelius Gallus in a lament over his mistress's infidelity. It does not mean Love conquers all obstacles, but rather, love dominates, lords it over, and subdues all creatures. The end of Gallus's lament (omnia vincit Amor, et nos cedamus Amori, Love masters all, so let us yield to love) signifies defeat and surrender, not ecstasy. Gallus's own life, of which we have the details in outline, seems to cast an even darker meaning over the lines; during his prefecture in Egypt he fell out of favor with Augustus and, upon his return to Rome, took his own life. I don't know whether Vergil wants us to think of Gallus's suicide at the end of his poem, though Gallus does say earlier to the inhabitants of Arcady (stand-ins for pastoral poets), O mihi tum quam molliter ossa quiescant, / uestra meos olim si fistula dicat amores!, O, then how soft my bones shall sleep, / if someday your reed-pipe may sing my love! However that may be, omnia vincit Amor is not a happy, transcendent line about the power of love; it's much darker in context.

[Michael Ferris]

I agree with Chris wrt Larkin’s poem. And, in this instance, I vastly prefer Larkin to Auden. I see no reason for Larkin to regret his line, as I think it’s superb, and of a piece with the poet and the poem… though it's easy to see how it's been wrenched out of context.

I admire much of Auden so very, very much -- but I find “September 1, 1939” ventose, preachy, simplistic, and a muddled mixing of the private and the public, the sacred with the profane. I despise the line in question, and for me, the substitution of “and” for “or” does nothing to improve it, or the poem. IMO, Auden wrote FAR better poems about politics, and about love.

[R. Nemo Hill]

"it's much darker in context"

Isn't everything?

Nemo

[W.F. Lantry]

Odd. I'd never heard of either of those two lines. Shows how much I know!

And until Chris spoke up, I always thought "Amor Vincit Omnia" came from the Wife of Bath's brooch [EDITING IN: Jan Hodge points out this was actually the brooch of the Prioress, which is entirely correct. Thanks Jan!]. She seems to have been deeply conflicted about the whole idea as well...

Best,

Bill

[Rory Waterman]

Originally Posted by Chris Childers

I've always thought it was very clear that the Larkin line is undermined by its context: it's our "almost instinct," proved "almost true."

Yip. Didn't stop Maeve Brennan asking for it to be engraved on her stone, though - or more precisely the stone she shares with her eventual husband, situated about thirty feet from Larkin's less busy hunk of grey. There's a bit of the dark side of onmia vincit Amor in this, no?

[Ann Drysdale]

And, indeed, the thought that the word "blazon", in the lines preceding those quoted, was supplied by Monica Jones.

[John Whitworth]

I've never thought the the Larkin line was truly undermined. It's as far as Larkin would ever go. Not a man for unequivocal statements. Auden's fatal facility has resulted in a bum line here. He knew it too. The second version is even worse. He did like telling people what to do, didn't he? I suppose that's why Communism had such an appeal and why he came up with the phrase he so regretted later, 'the necessary murder'.

Christianity was good for him. It would be good for me too. I'm working on it.

[Terese Coe]

True, John--the line can't be clearly undermined because there is so much truth in it.

RR asks: "Is it always more mature and serious for a poet to be riddled by doubt and conflict, rather than to give way to transcendence?"