Just 3 weeks to go :)
Well done on sitting your in-class essay. It's important to practise timed essays so you know how hard you need to work in the exam :)
Have a look at this website for some excellent resources on Larkin - it should really help you over these final few weeks of revision:
http://www.northallertoncoll.org.uk/english/litcontent/PHILIP%20LARKIN%20-student%20handbook%20mod%203.docPlease complete the following two tasks for next lesson, Thursday 8th May (we miss Monday's class owing to the Bank holiday):Task 1:Prepare a close reading (your own analysis in essay form) of the poem 'To the Sea' identifying the techniques, attitudes and ideas conveyed by Larkin in the poem.
Use the following list as an aid to your study:
a) Consider the use of iambic pentameter. Is it applied rigidly or flexibly? What effects are achieved by the use of iambic pentameter?
b) Discuss techniques that help to establish the poem’s rhythm, e.g. enjambment, placement of caesura, alliteration and assonance paying particular attention to the effects achieved by Larkin’s use of sibilance.
c) Consider Larkin’s use of cadence, particularly the idea of falling cadence.
d) What is the intended effect of the parenthesis in the second stanza?
e) Consider the notion of Larkin as a detached observer. How does he feel about the scene that he is describing? You should be able to detect a range of attitudes in this poem.
f) How does Larkin invest the first stanza with a sense of timelessness?
g) Consider the use of enjambment between the first and the second stanza, what is the effect of this?
h) Are there any ways in which the rhythm of the second stanza echoes that of the first?
i) How does Larkin present the futility of human existence in this poem?
j)List the language from the poem that you think best evokes a sense of the passage of time.
k)What effects do you think Larkin is striving to achieve by the long sentence from lines 11 – 22?
l) How would you say the tone of the poem shifts after this long sentence?
m) How does Larkin’s convey the sense that he no longer feels a part of this seaside scene?
n) Consider the repetition of the image of the ‘steamer’ in the first and last stanzas. What differing effects are achieved by its use?
o)How does Larkin utilise the technique of framing in the first and last stanzas?
p)What is your understanding of the poem's final sentence?
This list is intended as a guide, not a tick list. Above all, it is your own original ideas that count most!
Task 2:Choose a poem that you feel you do not know well and try to devise your own list of questions for that poem that you feel would help you to open up the poem for you.
