"The Forge" Seamus Heaney

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“The Forge”—Seamus Heaney
In the poem, “The Forge” by Seamus Heaney a small multitude of literary devices are used to convey the meaning of the poem. The poem reflects Heaney’s life in some aspects as well as the personality present within many of Heaney’s works. The interpretation of the poem varies slightly among experts but is believed to be invariably simple and straightforward.
Seamus Heaney was born in Ireland in 1939 at the dawn of a new age. With the upcoming war and hardships Heaney faced in his young life he saw a drastic amount of change within the world as he was growing up. His experiences are reflected significantly within his works of literature. More specifically, I believe the drastic growth towards our modern society is directly reflected in “The Forge”. Harold Bloom, a professional American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, wrote about Seamus Heaney’s life in the following quotation, “"The most important Irish poet since Yeats"—so has Seamus Heaney been described by the American poet Robert Lowell, who later in his life would become friends with Heaney. The intensity of the Irish experience is portrayed in much of the work of Heaney, who was born on April 13, 1939 on a family farm in Northern Ireland, about thirty miles northwest of Belfast. He was the first child of Margaret and Patrick Heaney, whose family would eventually grow to include nine children. This Catholic family was part of the majority that lived in the local area in relative harmony with their Protestant neighbors, yet at an early age Heaney felt the tension between the groups and within himself because of their divergent views on politics and religion, and, important for a future poet, their different lan...

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...bout a man who was once respected by and important to society. Through the natural change of society and the world the man’s job is rendered obsolete and outdated. The poem goes to suggest that a person’s job can be a natural way of life—it can live and die, rise and fall, and crumble to dust in the winds of time.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold, ed. "Heaney, Seamus." Seamus Heaney, Bloom's Major Poets.
Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. (Updated 2013.) Bloom's
Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 20 Apr. 2014 .
Heaney, Seamus. "imagery." Perrine's literature: structure sound & sense. . Belmont:
Wadsworth, 2010. 719. Print.
O’Brien, George. "The Forge." Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition (2002): 1-2.
Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.

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