Samantha Chung
Senior IB English
Ms. Rowe
15 January 2016
Poetry Analysis Paper:
“Digging” and “Frontier of Writing” by Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney has written many poems, but the two works so far “Digging” and “Frontier of Writing” haves a similar themes of with Heaney being a poet and writing poetry. In “Digging”, the speakers is Heaney himself who described to be stuck in the middle writing and gets distracting when looking out the window. Heaney spots he father ‘digging’, and Heaney expresses his admiration for his father’s hard work and makes a connection to his passion in writing poetry as ‘digging’, the more he wrote the better Heaney has gotten as a poet. In “Frontier of Writing”, the speaker in the poem is being interrogated and
“The tightness and the nilness round that space/when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect/its make and number and, as one bends his face.” (Line 1-3) and “towards your window, you catch sight of more /on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent/down cradled guns that hold you undercover.” (Line 4-6). Both of these lines creates an imagery of being questioned for something you have done. Heaney’s reason of using imagery in his poems allows him to be able to show his readers and viewers on his life experience. In “Digging”, Heaney gives his viewers a sense on how life in rural places would be like, since he lived on a farm. In “Frontier of Writing”, Heaney expresses how he truly felt when it comes to writing poetry and being a poet. Where certain people start to denounce Heaney’s poems, putting Heaney in a position of feeling and being interrogated and criticized for his
Diction is the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing, for Heaney it is his poems. For both of Heaney’s poems, the diction that goes with Heaney’s poems are included in the title itself. So, for the poem “Digging”, the word choice that fits with the poem is ‘digging’ as well because Heaney uses the word to show the readers a comparison between his way of ‘digging’ and his father way of ‘digging’. For Heaney’s father, ‘digging’ is the actual act of digging like digging up dirt, but for Heaney it is something totally different. Heaney uses digging as his way of expressing his passion for writing. Usually when you dig into a ground, you will end up getting deeper and deeper into the ground. Later when you dig far enough to the point you hit something or find something interesting, that would be your treasure and goal. For Heaney, the more thoughts and hard work he put into his poems and writing, the more his wrote, which him a popular poet today because of his passion for writing poetry, from his childhood days till adulthood. As for “Frontier of Writing”, the word choice in the poem was ‘Frontier’. Frontier is known to be a line or border separating two countries. For Heaney, he describes himself being stuck between something like a ‘frontier’ preventing to reach his goal. The frontier prevented him writing poetry which was his passion. The frontier refers to those who opposes or are against Heaney’s works.
One of the ways the author does this is by using enjambment to make the title and the first line of the poem flow into one single line. This symbolizes how when you are in jail there is no real beginning; one day flows to the next. His extensive use of figurative language, allows for the reader to paint a picture in his or her mind. “... to a dark stage, I lie there awake in my prison bunk.” This line can be interpreted literally and figuratively; he is really in prison in his bunk or it feels so much like a dream that it is as if he were on a stage. However, his diction shows that he has does this often. “...through illimitable tun...
O. Henry once said, “The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.” The poem goes a lot a deeper than the words on the page, the items and decisions within it really make you see things differently. Three symbols really stuck out to me; adolescence, sadness, and timelessness.
Blackmur's remarks apply equally well to The Waste Land, where syntactical sequence is given up for a structure depending on the perception of relationships between disconnected word-groups. To be properly understood, these word-groups must be juxtaposed with one another and perceived simultaneously. Only when this is done can they be adequately grasped; for, while they follow one another in time, their meaning does not depend on this temporal relationship. The one difficulty of these poems, which no amount of textual exegesis can wholly overcome, is the internal conflict between the time-logic of language and the space-logic implicit in the modern conception of the nature of poetry.
These are the philosophical conclusions the narrator comes to and then summarises in the coda. This essentially states that archaeology is unimportant due to its failure to capture the human spirit. The archaeologist himself, therefore, might be a personification of archaeologists or archaeology as a whole. Exact details about his study are not included, and the ambiguity of his conclusions, the most emphasized fact, applies to all ancient history. Personification of concepts or large groups are present the poem: e.g. "the criminal in us." This simplifies the concepts being referred to, both making them more accessible, and expressing them in fewer words. Therefore, doing this tightens the structure of the poem. The archaeologist’s inability to answer the questions posed by the narrator both parallels his lack of awareness of the narrator's viewpoint, and discredits him to the audience. This vindicates the narrator's final dismissal of 'history'. The narrator, of course, can only make discoveries if they are a character themself, with a unique perspective which may or may not reflect the authors. If not, they are a persona used to consider an issue from a new perspective. The visibility of the narrator is demonstrated through their use of colloquial language - "that's a stumper". In the coda and title, attention is also
Within the work, Heaney anthropomorphizes both countries. He compares the geological features of Ireland to the ‘tracked and stretchmarked body’ of a woman, whose most intimate identity - here symbolised by the ‘ferny bed’ and ‘bogland’ is invaded by the phallic ‘battering ram’ of an ‘imperially Male’ invader.
The first two lines of each poem start off with an obvious difference in translation styles. “High, high from the summit of the peak, / Whatever way I look, no limit in sight!” and “High on the mountain top / I can see to every horizon” begin the poem by Watson and the Wandering Poet respectively (1-2). Watson’s use of repetition of the word “high” can be interpreted by a reader as having the feeling of a larger mountain or peak. Conversely, the Wandering Poet’s translation may make this mountain seem smaller and less important. The Wandering Poet’s translation also gives the reader less room for interpretation through his structure and imagery. One such example is present in line 2, “I can see to every horizon” which can give a reader a concrete image, whereas Watson’s translation of this line says “no limit in sight!” Using this phr...
It describes how the conservative farmer follows traditions blindly and the isolated life followed by him. It reflects how people make physical barriers and that later in life come to their social life too. Where neighbor with pine tree, believes that this separation is needed as it is essential for their privacy and personal life. The poem explores a paradox in human nature. The first few lines reflect demolition of the wall, ?Something there is that doesn?t reflect love a wall? this reflects that nature itself does not like separation. The "something" referring to the intangible sense of social interaction. Furthermore "that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it" refers to Frost or to the author. Although the narrator does not want the wall, ironically, the mending of the wall brings the neighbors together and literally builds their friendship. An additional irony of the poem is that the only time these two neighbors sees each other is when they both mend the wall. The narrator sees the stubbornness in his neighbor, and uses the simile 'like an old-stone savage' to compare him to a stone-age man who 'moves in darkness', that is, set in his ways, and who is unlikely to change his views.
...ttachment or emotion. Again, Heaney repeats the use of a discourse marker, to highlight how vividly he remembers the terrible time “Next morning, I went up into the room”. In contrast to the rest of the poem, Heaney finally writes more personally, beginning with the personal pronoun “I”. He describes his memory with an atmosphere that is soft and peaceful “Snowdrops and Candles soothed the bedside” as opposed to the harsh and angry adjectives previously used such as “stanched” and “crying”. With this, Heaney is becoming more and more intimate with his time alone with his brother’s body, and can finally get peace of mind about the death, but still finding the inevitable sadness one feels with the loss of a loved one “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, indirectly telling the reader how young his brother was, and describing that how unfortunate the death was.
In Heaney's book of poetry entitled Opened Ground, Heaney shows the readers many different ways in which English rule and influence effected and changed the lives of different people in Ireland. For example, in Two Lorries, Heaney describes a man who is a coal deliverer and his love for Heaney's mother. As the poem progresses, we can see a metamorphosis in the lorry. As the political situation in Ireland escalates and war between different religious factions grows more immanent, the lorry changes from a man who falls in love with Heaney's mother to a raving political and religious war type man who needs to become involved in the skirmish between the religious groups and by doing this eventually blows...
...s using different poetic devices within the poems. “Nebraska” uses a rebellious persona, “Marks” uses a complex metaphor, and “Lies” constantly uses enjambment to enhance each poems message. Each of these poems was written around the modernist era, and display multiple characteristics of modernism, such as rebellious characters, topics that shock readers, and the embracement of new literary forms. Two of these poems have a theme that correspond to a prevailing social issue during that era. “Nebraska” was written alongside a series of other poems and songs depicting different serial killers during the same decade. “Marks” was written when women were believed to be less capable than men, but were also expected to exceed in everything they did. Poetic devices are used in most popular poetry and can enhance the messages and themes of poems as it did in these three works.
A specific example of a man who tosses three girls out the window and then plunges to his own death serves to show us the horror of the situation. the poem then continues on to tell us of in humane conditions in Scotland. It ends by telling us about the slaves who picked and planted the cotton. The speaker seems to be telling us a story in order to inform us of what's going on in the shirt industry.Robert Pinsky doesn't have many obvious examples of diction in his work, although hints of it can be found. There is a simile in the first line of the tenth stanza.
middle of paper ... ... rt point on both poems and explain my opinion about them. Both 'follower' and 'Digging' explore Heaney's sense of his own place in the family tradition. However, in 'Follower' he seems content to register that his life has turned out different from his father's, but nevertheless feels great love and admiration for him. In 'Digging', the distance between him and his family seems greater.
The poem itself is a technique Robert Frost uses to convey his ideas. Behind the literal representation of building walls, there is a deeper metaphoric meaning, which reflects people's attitudes towards others. It reflects the social barriers people build, to provide a sense of personal security and comfort, in the belief that barriers are a source of protection which will make people less vulnerable to their fears. Robert Frost's ideas are communicated strongly through the perspective of the narrator in the poem, the 'I' voice, who questions the need for barriers. The use of conversation and the thoughts of the narrator reflect the poet's own thoughts. In line thirty to line thirty-five, the narrator questions the purpose of a wall. He has an open disposition and does not understand the need to 'wall in' or 'wall out' anything or anyone.
The poem under analysis is called Ah, Are you Digging on My Grace? and it is written by the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. There are two main speakers in the poem, although other characters were referred to as well. The first main speaker is a deceased woman, who is trying to identify the visitor of her grave. The second main speaker is her living feline companion, which responds to her questions. The dog quotes other characters whom presence is questioned by the woman. The referred-to characters are her lover, family members, and enemy. The poem is essentially a dialog between the woman and her dog. She is astounded to sense that someone is “digging” on her grave, and is disappointed every time she provides an anxious guess. The woman’s first guess is her lover, and asks if he is planting rue on her grave. Her feline companion (who she does not know is talking to her) informs her of her lover’s marriage to a wealthy woman, which she presumably cannot be hurt by anymore considering her death. She guesses again, and it lands on “kin”, who is a family member. She is notified by the dog of their acknowledgment that mourning will not be of benefit as she will not come back to life. The woman gives a final guess, and asks if it is her enemy. She learns the opposite, that her enemy has concluded the woman’s unworthiness after death. Desperately, she asks once more; and her dog, who is concerned of being bothersome, finally announces his identity. The woman appreciates her dog’s devotion and loyally, which she later learns is not so. Her grave became a random spot for the dog to burry its bone in. The poem’s time elapse is based on the start and end of a brief dialog between the woman and the dog. Presumably, it is set in a graveyard, o...
The everyday objects present in his poems provide the reader an alternative perspective of the world. Robert Frost uses all the elements of poetry to describe the darker side of nature. After analyzing the Poem Mending Wall and After Apple Picking it is clear that nature plays a dark and destructive role for Robert Frost. This dark side of Frost’s poetry could have been inspired from the hard life he lived.