Broadcast

Themes
The connection between music, love and separation
 
Context and Content
The poem is essentially a love poem concerning a male persona sitting at home listening to the concert that his love is at over the radio. It is based around a real event and was written by Larkin for Maeve Brennan after she was at a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert at Hull and Larkin was at home listening, trying to pick her out from the crowd. There are some slightly humorous elements such as the joke Larkin and Maeve Brennan shared about her "slightly-outmoded shoes", however, much of the poem seems to center around failed love.
 
Analysis
First Stanza-

• The oxymoron of "giant whispering" suggests that the noise the persona hears over the radio is not easily distinguishable and that it is simply a blur. The auditory imagery of "whispering", "coughing" and "snivelling" (all onomatopoeic and some anthromorphism) presents an intense atmosphere in which sound is the only sense and Larkin was trying to decipher the sounds to find any linking to his love.
• The metaphors of  "Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces" depict the city hall as a church or perhaps shows the hall to have the atmosphere of solemnity that churches have. By using church imagery, Larkin is linking to the ideas of devotion and loyalty but also the idea of the tribulations that love can bring.
• "The Queen" is a colloquial term referring to the national anthem, sung at any public event whilst the "huge resettling" is that of people sitting down after the national anthem has ended.
• "A snivelling of the violins" depicts an image of sadness or sorrow, perhaps because the persona is intertwining his feelings of rejection with the sounds he is hearing.
• At the end of this stanza, there is a sudden change of focus from the sounds being heard to the idea of a female love among the crowd, whom the persona is imagining. It is clear that this is real reason for the persona listening to the radio-to feel a closer connection to the woman. This sudden zoom into something clearly in focus shows the strong feelings of the persona and the wild landscape of his imagination.

 
Second Stanza

• The caesura that appears at the end of the first stanza places emphasis upon the significance of the persona believing the women "beautiful and devout". However, an alternative interpretation is that is shows some bitterness on the part of the speaker as they are feeling rejected and rethinking what they believed "before". There is no suggestion throughout the poem that the speaker's feelings are reciprocated and the women is unresponsive. Larkin is trying to reach out but his love is drowning in the "cascades" of noise.
• A paradox appears in that by mentioning the "unnoticed" glove, Larkin actually draws our attention to it. It becomes a particular point of interest which proves that he cares about her, unlike those others at the concert. However, he notices her but she does not notice him. By dropping the glove (a symbol of fidelity at the time), perhaps she is signalling the end of their love  or it could be that she is just a careless person.
• The descriptions within this stanza are personal, as shown by the personal pronoun "your". The persona's thoughts have deviated from the music and become engrossed with the visualisation of what she may or may not be wearing-desperation. However, the description is also vague, meaning that the persona may not be as close to the women as he would like or her significance could be challenged.
• When "it goes quickly dark", the phrase could be meant to show the persona becoming completely absorbed by his thoughts for her and only seeing the "outline" of reality. Contrastingly, it could show the speaker being abruptly pulled back to reality and seeing the truth before his eyes. The word "dark" could be a reference to his own life. Like the abruption transitions of a radio when you never know if you will lose signal, the persona's connection with reality fades in and out.

Third Stanza

• Connotations of loss appear in the words "withering" and "half-empty", implying a negative view of love and suggesting that it may just drop away like the glove on the floor. There is only a tenuous connection which is fraught with uncertainty. The pathetic fallacy of autumn with the leaves falling away also hints at love ending.
• The poem then returns to descriptions of the radio broadcast as it comes roaring back in as "storms of chording"-tumultuous-reflecting the Larkinesque character's feelings. He once again becomes caught up in it and is overpowered.
• However, when the music is "cut-off", silence is left and the connection that the music brought is removed. The persona is left "desperate" to find even some sign of his love in the echoes, leaving his bare feelings on view. The poem ends with that tender image of "tiny" "hands" "applauding"-a gentle end to a loud and tumultuous  poem.
• The rhyme scheme of ABACCB is constant throughout the poem, showing perhaps the unchanging nature of the persona's feelings and the connections that they attempt to create.

Links to other poems
'Wild Oats'- bad relationships, how Larkin goes for unattainable women, separation
'An Arundel Tomb'- romantic views of love, love connected with art forms, the contrast of being eternally close and separated
'Love Songs in Age'-music telling a story
'For Sidney Bechet'- music as a method of stimulating the imagination, fantasy and love

Links: http://www.cprw.com/philip-larkin-broadcast