Dockery and Son

Question 1

Black-gowned

Answer 1

Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight

Question 2

I try the door

Answer 2

I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked.

Question 3

good Lord,
Anyone

Answer 3

good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In ‘43, when I was twenty-one.

Question 4

Precis

Answer 4

Dockery and Son is a 6 stanza, free verse poem with regular rhyme, which describes Larkin visiting his old university, Oxford, to find out that one of his old friends now has a son which prompts a reflection on different life choices and the passive nature with which people follow societal expectations.

Question 5

Well, it just shows

Answer 5

Well, it just shows
How much … How little … Yawning, I suppose // I fell asleep

Question 6

furnace-glares

Answer 6

furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed, // And ate an awful pie

Question 7

To have no

Answer 7

To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural

Question 8

Only a numbness

Answer 8

Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life

Question 9

Why did he think

Answer 9

Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution.

Question 10

Not from what

Answer 10

Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, just like doors.

Question 11

They’re more a style

Answer 11

They’re more a style
Our lives bring with them

Question 12

For Dockery,

Answer 12

For Dockery, a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son’s harsh patronage.

Question 13

Whether or not

Answer 13

Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

Question 14

I catch

Answer 14

I catch my train, ignored.

Question 15

A known bell

Answer 15

A known bell chimes. …….
Canal and clouds and colleges subside
Slowly from view.