Comparative Essay of "The Forge" and "Twice Shy".

Comparative Essay of “The Forge” and “Twice Shy”

‘The Forge’ and ‘Twice Shy’ both written by Seamus Heaney present a significant message. These two poems are both evidently rather different, in terms of structure, themes and devices. It is therefore the goal of this paper to examine the differences of each work in turn, in a comparative fashion, and discover the effect that these styles generate on the reader.

‘The Forge’ and ‘Twice Shy’ exhibit different forms and structures of poetry; the first being a Petrarchan sonnet and the second being a free verse with five stanzas. ‘The Forge’ has fourteen lines, with the octet focusing on the forge and the sestet on the smith. Seamus Heaney uses the anvil to emphasize the change of tone and shift of focus in the poem. ‘The Forge’ is fourteen lines long and all of the lines share the same approximate length of about ten syllables. It does not follow the rhyming scheme of a sonnet, which reflects and fits the conversational rhythms of language. ‘Twice Shy’ has five stanzas of six lines, structured as single lines to create the tense mood of the poem. In the first stanza, the setting and context is introduced in a way that suggests that the meeting between the two young people is fairly casual. In the second stanza the pace begins to quicken, each lines has three stresses which gives the poem a much faster pace and highlights the nervousness and tension.

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The two poems deal with very different themes. ‘The Forge’ is a descriptive poem in which Heaney celebrates local craftsmanship and explores metaphors of his own art in the local skills. In the octet, Seamus Heaney described the forge and indicates that life back then was good for the black smith, and showed how times had changed and the craft of Blacksmithing is no longer needed in the sestet. In this poem, Seamus Heaney used the work of a blacksmith to explore the meaning of art and suggests that the making of art is not exclusive for intellectuals. Twice shy is also a descriptive poem, but it focuses on a different theme. This poem is about two young people on their first date. Seamus Heaney focuses on the strong attraction between them, yet how they both refuse to ‘fall in love too quickly’ and approach love in a shy tentative way.

Much imagery is used in both of the poems to convey the picturesque image of the poems. The Forge’s opening line, 'All I know is a door into the dark' indicates that the poet is an onlooker to the forge and gives the poem a dark backdrop. All the imageries are generated by the forge and its surroundings. “Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting”, “The unpredictable fantails of sparks”, “Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water” creates images of the forge in the readers’ minds. Seamus Heaney used these images to create the feeling that the forge is a place of artistic creativity. He also used the ‘unicorn’ to add an air of mystery and mythical to the poem.

In Twice shy, the opening line “Her scarf a la Bardot, In suede flats for the walk” indicates the narrator’s attraction towards the young woman. Seamus Heaney used the rivers, birds, hawk and mushrooms in a symbolic way to show the complex feelings of the two young people. “Still waters running deep” and “Mushroom loves” symbolizes the adolescent love affairs, the swans symbolizing the romantic associations of fidelity.

Seamus Heaney used sounds to create musical quality in The Forge. Onomatopoeic words, such as ring, hiss, slam and flick and the alliterations of grunts and goes are used throughout the poem to create the pictorial composition. The flat e and a sounds gives weight and heaviness to the poem, highlighting the weight of the anvil and its importance. In Twice Shy, words such as walk, talk, took, traffic, dusk and hawk gives a harsh final consonant sound, which creates the tense tone of the poem.

‘The Forge’, being a sonnet is more constrained and less complex, compared to ‘Twice Shy’, which used more imageries and has a more interesting tone, which shifts between wariness and excitement. Throughout this paper, we explored the different techniques and styles Seamus Heaney used. ‘The Forge’ and ‘Twice Shy’, both are effective, however ‘Twice Shy’ is more effective in creating the tone and mood.