Close analysis of Follower by Seamus Heaney.

Authors Avatar
Close analysis of Follower by Seamus Heaney.

Follower a poem selected out of Seamus Heaney's first books of poem like a lot of his other poems is relating back to the memories which he had remember or experienced when he was at a younger age when his father. Through my knowledge about Heaney's I can to understand that it was a joyful and very rural lifestyle.

He was brought up on a potato farm and in many of his poems relates to this a lot suggesting maybe his enjoyment in farming or expressing the family's traditions. Follower is a poem, which relates to his past life. Which can be regarded as a big space of time. This gap in time can be noticed by the regularity of the poem. Not only does it have an even number of four-line stanzas and the combination of six stanzas in all but the regularity can also be seen through the regular internal rhyme:
Join now!


"Strung and tongue..."

"...Round and ground".

Time can also be implied as one of the main themes due to the enjambment of the lines through the poem.

In a lot of the Heaney poems that I have read it is noticeable that he relates to the past a lot of the time, as though he regrets living in the present age or finds it to hard or painful to speak of it? This can be quite easy to understand due to the violent murderous activity going on in Ireland through out the last 25years. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay