whitsun weddings- Larkin

What is this poem (time period)

Snapshot in time of the 50s

What is Larkin doing

Larkin is observing the working class - looking on them (class conflict)

What ao3 does this class conflict connote

Nickname of the ‘welfare state poet’

What is this poem inspired by

A trip Larkin made to London over the whitsun long weekend from Hull

What is the Pentecost

People feeling they have been filled with the Holy Spirit

Stanza 1

what is the tone

Observations of a changing landscape

What does the emjambment do

Echoing breathlessness running for a train- sense of hurry and panic

What is the rhythm

Iambic pentameter - bumpy rhythm of a train journey

What is the rhythm of every 2nd line

Shorter- iambic diameter - 4 syllables

What does “sunlit” “windows down” “cushions hot” description of the train do

Plunges us into a sensory world of the team - showing how uncomfortable he is

What does the Anaphora of “all” do

Puts the reader into train with him

What ao2 is “fish dock”

Sensory diction/ imagery -allusion to Hull

What do elongated vowels do

Evokes the tranquility of nature

What does “the rivers level drifting… water meet”

Triplet of landscape- dipicting the beauty of the landscape

Stanza 2

What does “tall heat that slept for miles inland”

Personification of heat creating a sleepy atmosphere - syesthesia (tall) (heat) touch

What is “tall heat”

Encroaching in on you - no escape from heat

What does “short shadowed cattle” mean

Sun is directly above them - hasn’t created a long shadow yet

What is the ao3 “canals with floating of industrial froth”

Industrialisation after WW2 - Larkin was cynic

What is ao2 of “hedges dipped and rose”

Juxtaposition of rising and lowering mimicking the train

What does “the reek of buttoned carriage cloth”

Larkin wants us to be as uncomfortable as he is

What is the diction of reek

Cacaphonic - words that sounds horrible- used deliberately

What is the juxtaposition of smells

Juxtaposition of fresh grass to the reek of humanity

What is the ao3 of “new and nondescript”

The towns act of 1946 relocated those who had lost their homes after WW2 to newly built towns

What does “nondescript” mean

Can’t describe as they are all the same - fiction reaveals his attitudes to new towns