Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney was born in April 1939 in Northern Ireland. His father
owned and worked fifty acres of farmland in County Derry in N.I.
Patrick Heaney had always been committed to cattle-dealing. Seamus’
parents died quite early in his life and so his uncle had to take care
of him from then on. Heaney grew up as a country boy and attended the
local primary school. When he was twelve he won a scholarship to St.
Columb’s College, a catholic boarding school situated in the city of
Derry. Heaney moved to Belfast later in his life where he lived for
fifteen years and then moved to the republic. Since 1982 he made
annual visits to America to teach and since then he started writing
his poems. Heaney’s first poem was called ‘Digging’.
The aims of this essay are to compare two of Seamus Heaneys’s poems
which deal with the theme of childhood. The two poems are called ‘The
Early Purges’ and ‘Mid-Term Break’.
The relevance of the title ‘The Early Purges’ is that it informs us
about what happens during the poem and it tells us what the subject of
the poem is. The poem goes straight into what it is about and it is
based the death of animals on a farm and is subjected to two people’s
opinions over the killing of the animals. The poem is very ambiguous
and ironic with a gory tone to it because of its in depth description
of the death.
The poem has seven three line stanzas called tercets, and each line
holds five to ten words keeping the poem easy to read throughout.
Heaney has chosen to use this stanza structure and line length because
it builds up tension and keeps you in suspense. It is also easier to
digest in small stanzas and I think he has done this for us to get the
full effect of the poem. There is a rhyme scheme in the poem but is
split into para-rhymes because it gives a flow to the poem and grasps
the readers attention all the way through.
Seamus Heaney uses lots of imagery in this poem to get the reader to
really imagine how the animals were treated on the farm. Heaney
mentions a line that Dan Taggart had said on the farm. “Like wet
Gloves” Dan had thought they looked like wet gloves when they were
being drowned. Also while Heaney had watched the kittens drown, he
said that he had watched them “Turn mealy and crisp as old summer
dung”. As you can see, again how Heaney exaggerates on the killing of
The alliteration used is to emphasize rhythm in the poem. On the other hand, the poet also depicts a certain rhyme scheme across each stanza. For example, the first stanza has a rhyme scheme of this manner a, b, c, d, e, a. With this, the rhyme scheme depicted is an irregular manner. Hence, the poem does not have a regular rhythm. Moreover, the poet uses a specific deign of consonance, which is present in the poem (Ahmed & Ayesha, p. 11). The poet also uses the assonance style depicted in the seventh stanza, “Seven whole days I have not seen my beloved.” The letter ‘o’ has been repeated to create rhythm and to show despair in the poem. On the second last line of the seventh stanza, the poet uses the style of consonance, “If I hug her, she’ll drive illness from me. By this, the letter ‘l’ is repeated across the line. The poet’s aim of using this style of Consonance is to establish rhythm in the poem and add aural
The sonf has a definite rhyme scheme which lends itself well to the theme of the poem.
Each stanza is composed of words that present a logical flow of growth through the entire poem. The words in the poem do not rhyme and the lines are different lengths.
mother he lived with his grandmother. His grandma took the best care of him out of
From the very first word of the poem, there is a command coming from an unnamed speaker. This establishes a sense of authority and gives the speaker a dominant position where they are dictating the poem to the reader rather than a collaborative interacti...
The elements in the poem work very well together to help set the theme of this poem. The tone set the overall mood of the poem, so show that it was rushed but not in a chaotic way. The imagery helps to show us little details of the setting, which are very helpful. And finally, the figures of speech, help the reader to compare the scene to things they have experienced in their lifetime to fully understand the poem.
The constant rhythm throughout the poem gives it a light beat, like a waltz; the reader feels like s/he is dancing. The rhyme pattern of...
family. When he was about eight years old, he had learned to stand up for himself and
...o.k. if your go the other way because the narrator is still some how going up, and growing. At the end the stanza finish like it started
Follower is a poem written by Seamus Heaney that uses vivid and powerful imagery to describe the bond between a father and son. In this poem the son respects and revers his father and wants to be just like him and grow up and plough in the fields just like. He tries his best to do this however, he isn’t that skilled at this and falls into issues because he keeps tripping and falling. Ext. What makes this poem unique is because Heaney hasn’t written in one perspective throughout but by two. Each character from the poem expressed their own side to show us a more in depth understanding to both sides.
This poem is a lyric poem since the speaker isn’t telling a story or an observation the this is a lyric poem. The speaker is expressing his or her feelings and emotions. The rhyme scheme in the first stanza is ABAAB, in the second stanza it is CDCCD, in the third stanza the rhyme scheme is EFEEF, and in the last stanza it is GHGGH. Knowing the rhyme scheme of the poem helps the reader be able to stress the syllables that make the poem flow and sound
The regular rhyme scheme -- A-B-C-C-B -- gives the poem a nursery-rhyme quality. In many places, the style seems to overpower the content: stanza 47 seems constructed solely to showcase the rhyme it contains: "Perhaps he's climbed into an oak / Where he will stay till he is dead" (ll. 233-234) is not really a worrisome fate, but it rhymes neatly with the last two lines of the stanza.
In relation to structure and style, the poem contains six stanzas of varying lengths. The first, second, and fourth stanzas
poem have a happy mood but it is the way he has made the poem very
The ABAB rhyme scheme is a pattern that can be recognized by many individuals; therefore, it relates to the message that motivation is needed by everybody. Two ABAB rhyme schemes make up each stanza, which symbolizes the positivity and negativity that battle throughout the poem. Guest breaks the rhyme scheme once by rhyming “failure” with “you”. This strategic action emphasizes the different methods that negative individuals use to destroy a person’s ambition. Internal rhyme is included in many lines of the poem to create fluidity and sound pleasing to an audience. The poem is composed of a qualitative iambic meter, giving the syllables a sound of da DUM. A pleasing flow is observed through the fairly consistent line length and line syllable number. The lines throughout the poem end in both stressed and unstressed syllables, referencing the battle between discouragement and