Afternoons Devices and effect Sonnet 43 link
‘How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways’
‘I love thee’
‣ Maudlin opening introduces metaphor ‣ Hypophora suggests strong purpose
for the progression of life suggesting and objective
that the youthful summer peak of the ‣ This poem is structured using
women’s lives has passed strategic listing
‘Summer is fading’
‣ ‘Fading’ gradual decline - almost ‣ Perspective makes her more
unnoticeable optimistic - feels her love is
‣ Observatory poem - prosaically boundless and can only continue to
declarative statement expand
‣ Insight into deep intimacy through
use of pronoun ‘thee’ - this is an
intrusion on something very
personal
‘Everyday’s most quiet need’
‘Breath,/ smiles, tears of all my life’
‣ Imagery centered around gradual ‣ Sees love in everything including the
decline mundane and everyday
‣ ‘Ones and twos’ suggests even nature is ‣ Contrasting use of enjambment to
regimented and predictable - beauty convey enthusiasm
‘Leaves fall in ones and and uniqueness of life has been ‣ Idea that her love is strong enough
twos’ stripped away to extend beyond just the happy
‘Hollows of afternoons’ ‣ Enforcement of roles within society times, but feels it is ever present
strips meaning and passion from meaning its continues through the
people's life leaving them with bad too (contrasts to reality in
emptiness Afternoons where Larkin explores
‣ Grounded in reality how fragile love is and how it can be
broken by something like marriage)
‣ Use of abstract images to attempt to
convey full meaning
‘As they turn from praise’
‘A love I seemed to lose with my lost
‣ Universality - marriage leads to saints’
motherhood and loss of identity
‣ Their identity is now rooted in ‣ Robert is so central to her life that
motherhood which is a result of the he guides her in a spiritual way as
expectations of marriage and women with God to a religious person
‘Young mothers within society ‣ Idea that her love for Roberted is an
assemble’ ‣ "young mothers" live a regimented life instilled and unmoving part of her
with little time for pleasure of their identity and that she is so selflessly
own devoted to him that she can find him
in everything she does
‣ The fact that they "assemble" has
formal connotations which present it
as routine
‘How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways’
‘I love thee’
‣ Maudlin opening introduces metaphor ‣ Hypophora suggests strong purpose
for the progression of life suggesting and objective
that the youthful summer peak of the ‣ This poem is structured using
women’s lives has passed strategic listing
‘Summer is fading’
‣ ‘Fading’ gradual decline - almost ‣ Perspective makes her more
unnoticeable optimistic - feels her love is
‣ Observatory poem - prosaically boundless and can only continue to
declarative statement expand
‣ Insight into deep intimacy through
use of pronoun ‘thee’ - this is an
intrusion on something very
personal
‘Everyday’s most quiet need’
‘Breath,/ smiles, tears of all my life’
‣ Imagery centered around gradual ‣ Sees love in everything including the
decline mundane and everyday
‣ ‘Ones and twos’ suggests even nature is ‣ Contrasting use of enjambment to
regimented and predictable - beauty convey enthusiasm
‘Leaves fall in ones and and uniqueness of life has been ‣ Idea that her love is strong enough
twos’ stripped away to extend beyond just the happy
‘Hollows of afternoons’ ‣ Enforcement of roles within society times, but feels it is ever present
strips meaning and passion from meaning its continues through the
people's life leaving them with bad too (contrasts to reality in
emptiness Afternoons where Larkin explores
‣ Grounded in reality how fragile love is and how it can be
broken by something like marriage)
‣ Use of abstract images to attempt to
convey full meaning
‘As they turn from praise’
‘A love I seemed to lose with my lost
‣ Universality - marriage leads to saints’
motherhood and loss of identity
‣ Their identity is now rooted in ‣ Robert is so central to her life that
motherhood which is a result of the he guides her in a spiritual way as
expectations of marriage and women with God to a religious person
‘Young mothers within society ‣ Idea that her love for Roberted is an
assemble’ ‣ "young mothers" live a regimented life instilled and unmoving part of her
with little time for pleasure of their identity and that she is so selflessly
own devoted to him that she can find him
in everything she does
‣ The fact that they "assemble" has
formal connotations which present it
as routine
