Whatever Happened?, Absences, Latest Face and Deceptions Flashcards
Larkin Revision
precious ____________’ (Latest Face)
vagrant
What does ‘vagrant’ mean and in which poem does it appear?
vagrant - homeless person. This is from Latest Face where the speaker describes the woman as being a ‘precious vagrant’.
What technique is used in the phrase ‘precious vagrant’? (Latest Face)
oxymoron
Your great arrival at my ___________’ (Latest Face)
eyes
yet to move/Into real _________ air/Brings no lasting attributive’ (Latest Face)
untidy
What does the metaphor ‘untidy air’ suggest about relationships?
They are confusing and impure
Bargains, suffering and _____________’ (Latest Face)
love
What technique is used here: ‘Bargains, suffering and love’ (Latest Face)
listing
What does the listing ‘bargains, suffering and love’ (from Latest Face) suggest about relationships?
They inevitably come with compromise and pain - love is placed at the end of this list, suggesting that it becomes secondary to these negative qualities.
____________ grow dark around us’ (Latest Face)
lies
What technique is used here: ‘lies grow dark around us’ (Latest Face)
personification
Why does the speaker refer to the woman in Latest Face as a statue - ‘will/The statue of your beauty walk?’
He objectifies her as something beautiful to be admired (but also worries about her leaving)
What word (beginning with v) describes how the speaker is presented in Latest Face? e.g. ‘your great arrival at my eyes’
voyeur/voyeuristic
Which verb is used in Latest Face to show how the speaker sees himself as awkward and clumsy?
wade - ‘must I wade behind it’
What was Larkin called: The saddest heart in the post-war ____________?
supermarket
The saddest heart in the post-war ____________?
supermarket
What was Larkin called? The saddest __________ in the post-war supermarket
heart
What was Larkin called? The saddest heart in the post- __________ supermarket
war
What did Larkin say about himself: ‘____________ is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.’
Deprivation
What did Larkin say about himself: Deprivation is for me what _____________ were for Wordsworth
daffodils
How did Larkin describe his poetry? ‘Sad-eyed ___________’
realism
What is the form used for the poem Whatever Happened?
It is a sonnet
What is the three-line interlocking rhyme scheme called that is used in Whatever Happened?
terza rima
Which poem describes the speaker’s attempts to rationalise and overcome an ambiguous trauma?
Whatever Happened?
What is the significance of the tight rhyme scheme (terza rima) that is used in Whatever Happened?
It symbolises how the speaker tries to control and compartmentalize the trauma he has experienced. However, this rhyme scheme is eventually broken in the final two lines, representing how the painful memory cannot be repressed.
‘Perspective brings ____________ we say’ (Whatever Happened?)
significance
What is the significance of the voice given to society in Whatever Happened? E.g. ‘perspective brings significance we say’
The quasi-philosophical language is intended to mock how we as a society try to rationalise and explain away the trauma we have experienced.
What is the significance of the narrator in Whatever Happened referring to the ‘latitude on a map’ and blaming what happened on ‘coastal bedding’?
The language shows a desire to reduce the trauma to something technical, rather than emotional.
Curses? The _____________? Struggling? (Whatever Happened?)
dark
What is the significance of the questions at the end of Whatever Happened? ‘Curses? The dark? Struggling?’
The incomplete, incoherent questions create a jarring tone, suggesting the speaker is left anxious and uncertain.
‘Easily then (though ________________)’ (Whatever Happened?)
pale
‘but find next day/All’s _______________ distant’ (Whatever Happened?)
Kodak
What is the significance of the narrator in Whatever Happened? referring to the memory as being ‘Kodak distant’?
It conveys how he wants to reduce the trauma to a photo - something that he can control and understand.
At the end of Whatever Happened? the main character questions - ‘Where’s the source/Of these yarns now’? - How might this have a double meaning?
Yarn can mean both a story and a type of thread. Therefore, Larkin suggests that the story of what happened, like unspooled thread, becomes tangled and difficult to make sense of.
What is the ambiguous trauma described in Whatever Happened supposedly based on?
Larkin’s affair with Patsy Strang, who was briefly pregnant with his child before suffering a miscarriage.
The motif of photography in Whatever Happened could have been influenced by…?
Larkin’s own interests - he was a keen amateur photographer.
What is the significant of the title ‘Absences’?
Larkin contemplates the vast power of the natural world when human influence is ‘absent’
In Absences, what connects the following words: ‘tilts’/’sighs’/’collapsing’/’drops’/’wilting’/’scrambling’?
These are all verbs - Larkin uses a huge number of verbs in the first stanza to show the fast-changing and energetic natural world.
‘A wave drops like a _________’ (Absences)
wall
In Absences, why does Larkin describe how ‘a wave drops like a wall’?
To convey the destructive, almost violent, power of nature. This also perhaps conveys the natural world as unrestricted and free.
In Absences, how does the focus shift from the first to the second stanza?
Whereas the first stanza describes the sea, the second depicts the sky.
In Absences, why does Larkin compare the sky to ‘lit-up galleries’?
To present it as something awe-inspiring and beautiful.
What is the significance of the exclamations that end the poem Absences: ‘Such attics cleared of me! Such absences!’
Larkin depicts a speaker that feels a joyful liberation - by contemplating the raw power of the natural world, his own existence seem trivial.
The poem Deceptions was originally titled…?
The Less Deceived
What is the significance of the poem Deceptions originally being titled The Less Deceived?
It suggests that Larkin considered the ideas in the poem to be central to the collection as a whole.
‘Even so distant, I can taste the __________’ (Deceptions)
grief
In Deceptions, why does the speaker say that he can ‘taste the grief’?
The speaker presents the young girl’s pain as something very specific and real.
‘the brisk brief/___________ of wheels along the street outside’ (Deceptions)
worry
In Deceptions, why does the narrator refer to the ‘worry of wheels along the street outside’?
Larkin uses personification to suggest that the young girl’s pain and anxiety is so great that it shapes her whole world.
‘___________ London bows the other way’ (Deceptions)
bridal
In Deceptions, what does ‘bridal London’ represent?
purity, innocence, virtue - because the girl has been sexually assaulted, she is seen as no longer having these attributes, which is why ‘bridal London bows the other way’
‘Your mind lay open like a drawer of ___________ ‘ (Deceptions
knives
In Deceptions, why does the speaker describe the young girl’s ‘mind lay open like a drawer of knives’?
To present the psychological anguish that the girl faces - her own mind is a place of threat and danger.
In Deceptions, why does Larkin present the female victim as being ‘less deceived’?
Although she has suffered a brutal sexual assault, she knows the cause of her pain. In contrast, her attacker is destined to be forever unfulfilled and unaware of why he feels such emptiness.
In Deceptions, why is the attacker presented as ‘stumbling’ and ‘breathless’?
Larkin presents him as clumsy and out of control - driven by his own base desires, he is destined to be perpetually disappointed and alone.
