Excerpts from:// thoughts on Annus Mirabilis by Philip Larkin

출처 1: Mural, some space in the University of Valencia (http://mural.uv.es/): http://mural.uv.es/margapa/philip.htm

ANNUS MIRABILIS

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the ^Chatterley^ ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me)-
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

* * *

HIGH WINDOWS

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Like an outdated combine harvester,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.

* * *

another excerpt from the same source above:

( ... ... ) Sexual Revolution in Larkin' time there were profound changes in matters referring to sex and the contraceptive methods. The sexual revolution refers to a significant hange in sexual behaviour and sexual morality throughout the West (particularly in the US and the UK) in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The sexual revolution was liberalization after a conservative period. Sex was openly discussed in books and music. Sexual practices that were previously considered unsuitable for discussion, such as oral sex, orgasm and homosexuality, were openly talked about. New methods of contraception allowed men and women to be able to control their own reproduction. ( ... ... )

This sense of a new age of sexual freedom is ironically captured by Philip Larkin, in his poem, "Annus Mirabilis" (1967).

• In line 3, "(which was rather late for me)", the poet is regretting because it was too late for him. Before the sexual revolution came, young men and women always had to think twice before getting intimate because there was a high possibility to produce 'unwanted' or 'unplanned' children. However, with the invention of the pill, most of the young lovers of the 1960s and 1970s did not even have to think twice before making love to each other. 

• In the first stanza of the poem, the author seems to show us that he would like to enjoy such sexual 'advantage'. He gives us an impression in favour of the pill, and although he does not mention it, nevertheless, we have to keep in mind that Larkin is using an ironic tone.

• ( ... ... ) Annus Mirabilis is a Latin expression, so if we translate this ( ... ) the meaning could be more or less 'Impressive Year' or "Admirable Year' (literal translation). Therefore 1963 ( ... ) could be described as Annus Mirabilis because the availability of the pill and the sexual revolution supposed a new culture of 'free love'.

( ... ) Larkin also explores a different kind of change over the time: the change of society's values. Annus Mirabilis is 1963, where "sexual intercourse began" (line 1) , "Between the end of the Chatterley ban / And the Beatles' first LP" (lines 4-5).  These two last facts were very important, as was especially the appearance of Beatles' first LP, now that we have to keep in mind the tremendous importance and influence that this band had for the youths of the 1960s and 1970s.

The general feeling in the 1960s was one of emancipation, liberation, and freedom. The social shift, the revolution, is described in this poem as "up until then there'd only been ... / a shame that started at sixteen'" (line 6-9). "then all at once, the quarrel sank: / everyone felt the same" (line 11-12). ( ... ... )

At the time "Annus Mirabilis", was written, [i.e., 1967,] it was an era ironically illustrated like "a brilliant breaking of the bank" (line 14). Human relationships had changed and before the sexual revolution happened, love was only included inside the boundaries of marriage, and sometimes, marriage was not more than a sort of blackmail, as he says in the poem "wrangle for a ring" (line 8). But this poem should not confuse us because Larkin rejected modernism, as he declared in an essay reprinted in "Required Writing", and in several poems such as "Going Going" and "The Building" (both written in 1972), and above all, we have to keep in mind the ironic tone Larkin is using. ( ... ... )


출처 2: Thanks to Bethany Stuart, https://bethanyasliterature.blogspot.com/2011/03/philip-larkin-annus-mirabilis.html

( ... ... ) The second stanza speaks of of life previously "a wrangle for a ring" portraying the social rule of on sex before marriage and presents how sex before marriage should be cast in "A shame that started at 16". As previously detailed this stanza too has an implicit reading with "A sort of bargaining" even going as far as to suggest the buying and selling of prostitution.

There appears to be a form of excitement involved with this "bargaining" and "wrangle". One could also be as crude to note how the first world in the stanza is "up" etc, etc.

출처 3: https://emmatotmanwiderreading.blogspot.com/2013/04/philip-larkin.html

"Annus Mirabilis" translated from Latin to "years of wonder" is a poem of sexual awakening. It marks the transformation of Larkin and of the country into an era of sexual liberation. ( ... ) Larkin talks about it being "rather late for me", "A wrangle for the ring" and "the quarrel" which endows virginity as a right of passage --something that's desired as a right to coming of age and can almost be viewed as a competition in comparison to peers as in a boxing ring [,] "A wrangle for the ring". This could also have connotations of marriage (a wedding ring), or more explicitly, be a metaphor for a woman's body part. The bargaining depicts sex as material goods to be bought and sold--the superficiality of sex and men's view on women.


출처 4: https://betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/sexual-intercourse-began-in-1963/

( ... ... )  When he says that "life was never better than / In nineteen sixty three," does he really believe this or (what is more likely) is he just talking about how it felt to glimpse a world where sex could be guilt free? A "year of miracles" where there would no longer be "a wrangle for the ring, / A shame that started at sixteen / And spread to everything"?


출처 5: https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/sexual-nostalgia-cRo9lTq67s

Sexual intercourse began in 1963, famously too late for Philip Larkin. HIs timing was precise, 'Between the end of Chatterley ban / And the Beatles' first LP ...',

Up until then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for a ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Larkin's 'wrangle' and 'shame' cling tenaciously in popular memory. Present historiography likewise reads sexual experience before the pill through the lens of 1960s liberation and modernization, finding it narrow, inhibited and wanting. ( ... ... )


출처 6: https://books.google.co.kr/books?id=2x0ey2DBcX4C&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=Philip+Larkin+wrangle&source=bl&ots=rpQixQzdaw&sig=ACfU3U2Xi8r68jY4cYVa_KXjvaTcxwEi8A&hl=ko&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVu-Xf4bHmAhVKGaYKHV0fCPkQ6AEwCHoECAkQBA#v=onepage&q=Philip%20Larkin%20wrangle&f=false

( ... ... )

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(Which was rather late for me) --
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' fist LP.

( ... ... ) The poet here means that pre-marital sexual relations became acceptable to all as a part of a new libertarian and consumerist ethic, which is here defined in relation to a best-selling paperback (^Lady Chatterley's Lover^) and a best-selling Long Playing gramophone record of the Beatles who epitomised popular culture in England in the 1960s and 1970s. This is clarified in the next stanza:

Up till then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for a ring
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Thus, the firs two stanzas compare and contrast sexual freedom of the present with sexual repression of the past, when marriage ("A wrangle for a ring") was essential for access to sexual experience, and sex outside marriage often led to life-long remorse and still graver consequences.  The third stanza seems to celebrate the time's eager, timely response to the new sexual mores which the poet describes in terms of breaking open the bank of life for all good things that had so long remained confined and prohibited.  ( ... ... )

( ... ... ) During the period between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles' first LP, Victorian morality finally and absolutely died; pornography was legitimized; and sex arrived at the public cinema. The Beatles' first LP began playing to a new breed, miniskirted, barefooted, long-haired and bearded; and who revolt on college campuses, dodge the draft, wear Afro hair styles, smoke grass, rock-and-roll under psychodelic lights, 'blow their minds', 'do their thing,' and would consider the very term 'free-love' a laughable archaism. ( ... ... )

출처 7: Baishakhi Banerjee and P. K. Senapoti, "An Analytical study of some of the poems of Philip Larkin based on his theme of death," ...

( ... ... ) He expresses marriage as a wrangle for a ring. In the past old days, marriage was essential for access of sexual relationship and sex outside marriage was a matter for remorse for lifelong. In those days sex was restricted and the people used to maintain the social ethics. But ultimately the rigidity takes the form of frequent sex making.

출처 8: https://chipputrieslit.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/annus-mirabilis/

( ... ... ) The second stanza speaks of sex as previously "a wrangle for a ring", with "wrangle" suggestive of reluctance and conflict, hinting at the tediousness of having to fulfil the absolute condition of marriage (as represented by the "ring") before sex. In Larkin's younger days, sex before marriage was taboo and seen as "A shame that started at 16 / spread to everything," suggesting that it was almost disease-like in nature and unthinkable. The "sort of bargaining" can suggest prostitution or an idea of a boy negotiating with a girl in order to enjoy sex, and this process is suggestive of tediousness and effort, which directly contrast with the current sexual freedom where "everyone felt the same" and "bargaining" was no longer necessary.