Reasons for Attendance Flashcards
What is the main theme?
Societal expectations to conform, join in and let sex define you
What is the speaker briefly drawn to?
The music hall, attracted by music and sexual desire
What is the rhyme scheme?
ABABB - majority half rhymes with exception of the final rhyming couplet
What device is used in ‘The trumpet’s voice, loud and authoritative’?
Personification - music has an undeniable power over him as there is a direct address
What AO3 can be linked to this poem?
Larkin’s love for jazz as he believes sex is superficial and music has a much longer satisification
What can be inferred through ‘to the lighted glass’?
Speaker sees a new truth/ has an awakening. Separation between speaker and society
What device is used in ‘Solemnly on the beat of happiness’?
Oxymoron - societies actions as somewhat forced/overly structured, lacking individuality as there is a strange formality to their dancing. Joy is regulated and tightly controlled.
What device is used in ‘sensing the smoke and sweat’?
Sibiliance - recreating the intensity of the setting
What can be inferred through ‘Surely to think the lion’s share/ Of happiness is found by couples - sheer / Inaccuracy’?
Cliche to mock those who believe happiness comes from being In a couple. Stanza break/enjambment shows the narrator breaking away from expectations
What can be inferred through the repetition of individual in ‘individual sound… I too am individual’?
Speaker has a unique and personal form of fulfilment
What device is used in ‘It speaks; I hear’?
Personification shows a direct and profound relationship
How is the speaker presented in ‘But not for me, nor I for them’?
He separates himself from the masses / dominant ideology
What does ‘maul to and fro’ have connotations of?
Connotations of undignified and animalistic actions - society as primitive - speaker looking down on them
What device is used in ‘If no one has misjudged himself. Or lied’?
Caesura places all emphasis on ‘Or lied’ as the speaker questions the truth of happiness and if he is being honest. Speaker wonders whether he has actually decieved himself into believing he can find happiness in solitude, perhaps no better than the dancers and illusory desires
For which newspaper did Larkin write jazz reviews?
The Daily Telegraph
