Compare and contrast Storm on the Island, by Seamus Heaney, and Patrolling Barnegat, by Walt Whitman

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Compare and contrast Storm on the Island, by Seamus Heaney, and Patrolling Barnegat, by Walt Whitman

        The situations described by these two poems have much in common; both present a severe storm on the Atlantic coastline, which causes a struggle between man and nature. But the key idea, in these poems, is the different responses by the two poets to their situation. Both are in the first person, and the sensuous information and the thoughts of the poets about the situation. Storm on the Island shows the sheer terror felt by those in the storm, whilst Patrolling Barnegat is a tribute to the coastguards whom Whitman very much admires. They are similar in some features of language; they use military imagery to describe the wind’s actions, and techniques such as alliteration and. They differ massively in their structure; Storm on the Island uses a distinct sentence structure, whilst Whitman writes his poem without using a single finite verb.

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        To engross the reader in the situation, Whitman uses alliteration in Patrolling Barnegat that in reminiscent of the sounds of a rough sea (“spirts of snow fierce slanting”). He also compares the storm to a wild animal; indeed, he repeats the word “wild, wild”, and uses the word “roar”; this emotive language perhaps suggests a dangerous lion, or another such animal; a natural danger. This runs parallel with something even more sinister; the noise of the storm is described as “shouts of demoniac laughter”, an extremely emotive term that suggests something evil about the storm; in 1856, demons and evil ...

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