"Violence is never far from the surface." Discuss with reference to three of Heaney's poems.
"Violence is never far from the surface." Discuss with reference to three of Heaney's poems. To discuss the topic of violence in Heaney's poems, it is easiest to look at three of his poems that have an aggressive nature. Therefore, I am going to look at the poems: Punishment, A Constable Calls and Act of Union, all of which incorporate the theme of violence. It is useful to understand the underlying themes of the poems mentioned to understand them as violence is not always explicitly mentioned. A Constable Calls is about a police officer visiting a Northern Irish farm, checking up on the farms produce. A rather innocent task, however, in the mind of the young boy, this visit appears threatening and intruding. Punishment is about the remains of a body (a young female in her day) found in a bog. She appears to be the victim of a ritual killing, punished for the fact that she was an adulteress. Act of Union, on the alternative hand, is a complex metaphor distinguishing England as a man, Ireland as woman and Northern Ireland as the offspring. England has effectively raped Ireland in the way it treats it creating the multi-cultured society that we call Northern Ireland. All three poems have very dissimilar themes, portraying and exploring violence in very different ways. The poems look at mental and physical violence such as in A Constable Calls where the child is very fearful
Explore the ways Heaney uses nature in the two peoms 'Blackberry Picking'and 'Death Of A Naturalist'.
Explore the ways Heaney uses nature in the the two peoms 'Blackberry Picking' and 'Death Of A Naturalist' Heaney sets the poem 'Blackberry Picking' in the countryside. You can tell this by the title of the peom and he also mentions 'hayfields, cornfields and potao-drills' in the first verse. Heaney uses a lot of alliteration in this poem. For example in the first verse he says 'big dark blobs burned'. There is a repetition of the b'b sound. This also makes the look of the berries more powerful. The reader gets a strong impression of their shape and colour. also he repeats the 'f' sound in the line 'The fruit fermented' which is in the second verse. This may give the effect, to the reader, of something slow. The word fermenting is a slow process. The imagery Heaney uses is concentrated in the first verse. For example, he says 'a glossy purple clot' and 'its flesh was sweet like thickened wine'. all of the metaphor and similie phrases convey stronhgs images of blood. At the beginning of the poem he makes the ripe berries out to be like young children- lots of 'blood' inside and then by the end of the poem he makes rthem out to be like older people. He says 'The fruit fermented' which shows decay and aging. An interesting image he gives the reader is when he mentions Bluebeard. This is another of his many conections to blood but it is, by far, the strangest. Bluebeard was
Explore how Heaney writes about childhood experiences in Death of a Naturalist and in one other poem of your choice. In your Response you should include discussion of the following:
Explore how Heaney writes about childhood experiences in Death of a Naturalist and in one other poem of your choice. In your Response you should include discussion of the following: * Descriptive elements * Use of language and structure Heaney writes about childhood experiences in Death of a Naturalist and Blackberry-Picking. Death of a Naturalist is concerned with growing up and loss of innocence. The poet vividly describes a childhood experience that precipitates a change in the boy from the receptive and protected innocence of childhood to the fear and uncertainty of adolescence. Similarly, Blackberry picking is about hope and disappointment and easily becomes a metaphor for other experiences. Both poems are organised in two sections corresponding to the change. Death of a Naturalist opens with an evocation of summer landscape which has the immediacy of an actual childhood experience. There is also a sense of exploration in which is consistent with the idea of learning inevitable leading to discovery and troubled awareness of experience. In the second section everything changes and the world is now a threatenting place, full of ugliness and meance. There is still a strong emphasis on decay and putrefaction, but now its not balanced by images suggesting profusion of life. Similar to the Death of a Naturalist, Blackberry picking begins with the description of the
Digging Analysis
Ravi Aggarwal GCSE English Coursework Digging Analysis I will approach this piece of coursework by first analysing both poems separately and then talking about their similarities and differences at the end. The two poems have similar themes in that they are both about the poet's memories of their ancestors. They are both about how the poets deal with their feelings by writing a poem. The poem is about a man who has grown up on a farm in which his ancestors have always worked digging for potatoes. The man in the poem feels guilty because he feels that he is letting his predecessors down because he has found a talent in writing. He feels that he does not want to dig for a living. The poem starts in the present tense. In the first line you find out that the poem is personal because of the word "my". The unusual simile "The squat pen rests, snug as a gun" is odd because guns are not thought of as snug or cosy so perhaps he is showing that the pen is like his weapon and can be very powerful or effective in some way. In the second stanza the man hears a sound from "under his window." The poet uses onomatopoeia to describe the sound, which gives us a sense of hearing and being able to imagine the "rasping" sound. There is also alliteration with "spade sinks" and "gravely ground." The persona knows what the "rasping" sound is without even looking down, probably because
An Introduction to The Great Famine
An Introduction to The Great Famine After a warm, uninterrupted summer, the late summer beckoned, and at the beginning of September, when the potatoes were to be harvested, it became clear that entire crops were diseased and unfit for consumption by either man or animal. Within months the disease had spread and the Irish were in the grip of a dire potato blight, which within months had wiped out three quarters of the entire potato crop in Ireland. It should not be thought that the potato blight was the only reason for the famine, granted it was a primary factor, however when coupled with a huge inflation within the Irish population, and that meant due to this, people had significantly less land to grow and harvest crops, this when coupled with the potato blight made it neigh on impossible to prevent the starvation of an entire country. "Our accounts from the northern parts of this country are most deplorable. What the poor people earn on the public works is barely sufficient to support them. All their earnings go for food; and the consequence is, that they have nothing left to procure clothing. Since the extreme cold set in, sickness and death have accordingly followed in its train. Inflammation of the lungs, fevers, and other maladies, resulting from excessive privation, have been bearing away their victims. Many have died in the course of last week; and the illness in
'From our study in the "Clearances" collection, what is revealed about Seamus Heaney and his relationship with his mother, and his thoughts and feelings about other members of his family'
'From our study in the "Clearances" collection, what is revealed about Seamus Heaney and his relationship with his mother, and his thoughts and feelings about other members of his family' One of the most moving and emotional of Heaney's works is his collection of sonnets called 'Clearances'. These sonnets were written in dedication and memoriam to his mother Margaret Kathleen Heaney, who died in 1984. The eight sonnets are filled with lively, detailed and vivid memories, but the strong and loving relationship between Heaney and his mother is constantly referred to also. Heaney has no difficulty in expressing openly the love felt for his mother, both by him and his family, as we see in the invocation at the beginning of the collection; 'She taught me what her uncle once taught her'. Here we immediately see how his mother has taught him simple but great life wisdom, how to live and deal with problems in everyday life. This immediately identifies a clear picture of love and devotion towards her son, illuminating right from the beginning their strong mother/son relationship. This life wisdom is reflected again in sonnet 2, whereby she commands him on various rules before entering the house she grew up in; 'And don't be dropping crumbs. Don't tilt your chair'. This yet again shows the close bond Heaney and his mother share, as she warns him in order to avoid him getting into
Seamus Heaney.
Seamus Heaney Heaney was born on April 13, 1939, the eldest of nine children, to Margaret and Patrick Heaney, at the family farm, Mossbawn, about 30 miles northwest of Belfast in County Derry. He attended the local school at Anahorish until 1957, when he enrolled at Queen's College, Belfast and took a first in English there in 1961. The next school year he took a teacher's certificate in English at St. Joseph's College in Belfast. In 1963 he took a position as a lecturer in English at the same school. While at St. Joseph's he began to write, publishing work in the university magazines under the pseudonym Incertus. During that time, along with Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, and others, he joined a poetry workshop under the guidance of Philip Hobsbaum. In 1965, in connection with the Belfast Festival, he published Eleven Poems. In August of 1965 he married Marie Devlin. The following year he became a lecturer in modern English literature at Queen's College, Belfast, his first son Michael was born, and Faber and Faber published Death of a Naturalist. This volume earned him the E.C. Gregory Award, the Cholmondeley Award in 1967, the Somerset Maugham Award in 1968, and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, also in 1968. Christopher, his second son, was born in 1968. His second volume, Door into the Dark, was published in 1969 and became the Poetry Book Society Choice for the year.
Consider Heaney's presentation of relationships in Act of Union and one other poem
Consider Heaney's presentation of relationships in Act of Union and one other poem The poem Act Of Union is an allegory and focuses on the theme of relationships. It has a surface meaning of a relationship between a man and woman and the underlying meaning of Ireland and Britain. Its title is from an act passed in parliament in 1800, England's response the 1789 rebellion. This created from January 1st 1801 onwards, the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland'. The extended metaphor used throughout the poem describes what took place between England and Ireland but also a sexual act taking place between a man and woman. The flow of the poem using enjambment also represents the sexual act taking place. The language used in the 1st stanza points toward this being a case of rape, "To slip and flood; a big burst," "And arms and legs are thrown" The use of alliteration and consonance represent the pain and harshness of the act of rape and the invasion of Ireland by England. Yet Heaney goes on to write, "I caress The heaving province..." this juxtaposition of the sexual act provides a stark contrast and forces us to stop and revaluate exactly why we are reading the poem. Topography is also used in the poem to give a female persona to Ireland, "Your back is a firm line of eastern coast" and also the power England holds over Ireland, "I am the tall kingdom" Towards
Follower is a poem written by the renowned poet Seamus Heaney. The poem relates back to Heaneys past memories which he had experienced when he was at a younger age.
'Follower' is a poem written by the renowned poet Seamus Heaney. The poem relates back to Heaney's past memories which he had experienced when he was at a younger age. The text is spoken through the first person narrative of a child's perspective and the use of diction and metaphors further conveys the poet's relationship with his family. The poem, although sounding very simplistic, manages to convey Heaney's relationship through memories that he had with his father. In the first half of the poem the poet draws a vivid portrait of his father as he ploughs a field. The poet, as a young boy, follows his father as he goes about his work and, like most boys, he idolizes his father and admires his great skill, 'An expert. He would set the wing and fit the bright steel - pointed sock'. For a substantial amount of the poem, Heaney devotes his time to praising his father. Through this entire appraisal, the young Heaney becomes more attached to his father, making their relationship stronger. The father is, more than anything else, a skilled and energetic farmer. He is the source of admiration for Heaney for which he praises him in a physical and metaphorical standpoint. In the physical standpoint, his father's strength and fortitude are described effectively by the use of a simile. Heaney describes his shoulders as "globed like a full sail strung". The image of a full sail strung
The Tollund Man
Becki Lee The Tollund Man Coursework The Tollund Man is one of Europe's best-known bog bodies. He was found, alongside The Grauballe Man in the early 1950s. Bog bodies recovered from the past are quite wide spread throughout Northern Europe, especially in Denmark, Germany and Ireland. The peat perfectly preserves the bodies due to anaerobic conditions, although the bodies are found blackened, their fingertips, hair and clothing are all still intact. Seamus Heaney uses the bog bodies in his poetry to "uncover, in their meditations, a history of Ireland's conquest, first by Viking's and later by the English". 'Tollund Man' opens quietly and effectively like Glob's initial description, "an evocative and poetic prose", and it is mirrored by the structure of quatrains which is divided into three sections. The first verse is mostly monosyllabic, 'some day I will...to see his peat...' making the words sound hard, which sets the scene as it is a serious subject. There is also no repetition of vowels or consonants which shows a lack in fluency. The repetition of p in the words 'peat' and 'pods' makes the verse sound very pronounced. Moreover, the smallness of his head is defined by the short i's and alliterated p's of the monosyllabic words in the first verse. "The balance of the initial and final p's in the fourth line seals the