Most, if not all, of Heaney's poems in 'Wintering Out' describe Heaney's uncertainty towards religion and his home land, Northern Ireland - "The Tollund Man" and "Westering" best illustrate these uncertainties.
Haneesa Latif Choose two poems to illustrate Heaney's feelings of uncertainty. Most, if not all, of Heaney's poems in 'Wintering Out' describe Heaney's uncertainty towards religion and his home land, Northern Ireland. "The Tollund Man" and "Westering" best illustrate these uncertainties. "The Tollund Man" is about a body found in a bog that has been preserved for hundreds and thousands of years. The body was a sacrifice made to the Pagan Goddess of fertility, otherwise known as the earth. The tannic acid in the bog preserved the body, replacing the skin with a thick, brown, leather like layer. In this particular poem, Heaney looks beyond the body being preserved by the tannic acid and questions whether the Tollund Man was more than a man. We begin to realize Heaney's uncertainty towards the Christian religion. -..his peat-brown head, the mild pods of his eye-lids, His pointed skin cap. Here, he describes the Tollund Man's appearance. He goes on to describe how he feels the Tollund Man ended up in the bog. - Naked except for the cap, noose and girdled, I will Stand a long time. Bridegroom to the goddess, she Tightened her torc on him... He talks about the Tollund Man as a Pagan sacrifice. He goes into the Past to learn more about the Tollund Man. He feels the need to know more about the Tollund Man because he is his new inspiration. He even -..could risk
Drawing examples from a range of poems discuss Heaney's treatment of what he has called History, Memory and Attachemetns.
MEGAN MCCLUSKIE ADVANCED HIGHER ENGLISH DRAWING EXAMPLES FROM A RANGE OF POEMS DISCUSS HEANEY'S TREATMENT OF WHAT HE HAS CALLED "HISTORY, MEMORY AND ATTACHMENTS." The Irish poet Seamus Heaney has written many poems focusing on the history of Ireland and his own personal memories. In these poems Heaney looks closely at the problem of sectarianism and violence in Ireland during 'Digging' is one of Heaney's poems, written at a time when his poetry was more concerned with the personal - his relationships to his family and the rural world in which he was born. In the poem Heaney memorialises the cycles of manual labour on his family's farm - digging up potatoes and cutting turf on the bog. On one level this seems hardly the material that might engage a poet, but in celebrating the familial and the local, Heaney is drawing attention to the significance of ordinary people on the land as well as attempting to find his place in the world and the very nature of this relationship to that world. Thus, I believe that It is fair to say that this poem clearly demonstrates Heaney's treatment of what he has called "history, memory and attachments. 'Digging' is centrally concerned with the alienation felt by Heaney and the need to negotiate the distance between origins and the present circumstances. In Ireland when he was growing up Heaney was the first generation of working class people
Explore the theme of growing up in 'The Early Purges' and 'Death of a Naturalist', by Seamus Heaney.
Explore the theme of growing up in 'The Early Purges' and 'Death of a Naturalist', by Seamus Heaney. In both 'the early purges', and 'death of a naturalist', Heaney makes childhood, growing up and the loss of innocence the central themes. 'The early purges' accounts a child's realization that the world is a cruel place, through the drowning of kittens on an Irish farm where Heaney grew up. He uses similes such as 'a frail metal sound', to make the poem very visual, and help the reader feel present. These visual images are mostly used at the start of both the poems, when the child is perceived as being still innocent. In death of a naturalist, the first stanza shows how the child saw the flax dam, a clearly ugly thing, as being a place where 'bubbles gargled delicately, / bluebottles wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.' Heaney glorifies nature in the way of a small child, to give the readers an idea of how it was. The sentimental view of the child in 'the early purges' also shows this. He sees the kittens as beautiful creatures, and so is 'suddenly frightened' when they are killed. This innocence and wonder is corrupted in both poems. This point is marked in 'the early purges' by the line 'until I forgot them'. At this point, Heaney is speaking from the viewpoint of an adult, and everything changes. As he says, 'living displaces false sentiments'. He has matured,
Act of Union essay
Act of Union I To-night, a first movement, a pulse, As if the rain in bogland gathered head To slip and flood: a bog-burst, A gash breaking open the ferny bed. Your back is a firm line of eastern coast And arms and legs are thrown Beyond your gradual hills. I caress The heaving province where our past has grown. I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder That you would neither cajole nor ignore. Conquest is a lie. I grow older Conceding your half-independant shore Within whose borders now my legacy Culminates inexorably. II And I am still imperially Male, leaving you with pain, The rending process in the colony, The battering ram, the boom burst from within. The act sprouted an obsinate fifth column Whose stance is growing unilateral. His heart beneath your heart is a wardrum Mustering force. His parasitical And ignmorant little fists already Beat at your borders and I know they're cocked At me across the water. No treaty I foresee will salve completely your tracked And stretchmarked body, the big pain That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again Act of Union by Seamus Heaney is a metaphorical interpretation of the situation between and Britain and Ireland over the past centuries. It is written in the form of two sonnets in separate parts, as you will have seen. At first the poem seemed really difficult and confused everyone into thinking it
With Close reference to Broagh, Anahorish and Anew Song, write about Heaney's use of language as a way of celebrating his Irish identity.
With Close reference to Broagh, Anahorish and Anew Song, write about Heaney's use of language as a way of celebrating his Irish identity. In all three of the poems the first line has a very significant link with either the Irish language or the geography of Ireland. For example in Anahorish the first line explains what the title means. He says " my 'place of clear water' ", the reason he uses the word my during this is so that the poem is seen through his eyes and gives the reader a first person view of what he is seeing and doing and why what he has written is so significant to him. It also shows by using this that he feels comfortable in this place and it is as if it was a safe haven for him, thus showing how he feels when he is in Ireland, safe and secure. But in Broagh the same thing happens he firstly shows what the title of the poem means and in this case it means riverbank. This way of writing is significant because it is showing that he is proud of Ireland and that he is proud to teach others about his culture and what it means to be Irish. In 'A New Song' the first line again has a direct link with Ireland, but this time it is not linguistic as in the other two poems but it is geographical. He states " I met a girl from Derrygarve", this obviously being a place in Ireland. But notice must again be shown to the way in which the sentence is written. The use of "I"
A Comparison Between 'Requiem For The croppies' And 'The Tollund Man', both by Seamus Heaney
A Comparison Between 'Requiem For The croppies' And 'The Tollund Man', both by Seamus Heaney Seamus Heany is a poet, born in Northern Ireland in 1939. He currently divides his time between his home in Dublin and Harvard University, where he is 'Emerson poet in residence'. Heaney's poems are rarely political but two poems which comment indirectly on sectarian violence are 'Requiem For The Croppies'- written in 1966, and 'The Tollund Man' which was published in 1972. Each poem is inspired by the past but is revolving to the recent troubles. Heaney was awarded the 'Nobel Prize for Literature' in 1995. 'Requiem For The Croppies' was written in 1966 to mark the anniversary of the Easter rising (the Easter rising refers to a rebellion against the British by the catholic Irish which brought about the civil war.). The poem tells of an earlier rebellion of the Irish against the protestant British in 1798 and how this rebellion can be linked to the Easter rising and current sectarian violence in Ireland. Heany writes the poem in the first person, as if he were one of the croppies; a peasant youth rebelling against the protestant British who are running catholic Ireland. 'The Tollund Man' is another of Heaney's poems in which he comments indirectly on the sectarian violence in Ireland. This poem was written after Heaney was inspired by a book by P.V Glob which features recently
Explore how Heaney writes about suffering in 'Bye-Child' and in one other poem of your choice.
Explore how Heaney writes about suffering in 'Bye-Child' and in one other poem of your choice. In both 'Bye-Child' and 'Limbo', Heaney concentrates mostly on pain and suffering of individuals who have been born into a world where they are not allowed to be seen or acknowledged. In both cases, these individuals are innocent children, who, unfortunately due to the rigid and uncompromising Catholic community, are forced into a life of deprivation and suffering. "Bye-Child" is an amazing encapsulation of the thoughts and feelings that Seamus Heaney has towards mistreated and abused children, and the poem, though inspired by a specific case of abandonment of a child, could be seen as Heaney's attempt to reach out to any child who has had bad experiences in their lives. Heaney exposes the pain and neglect suffered by those who are unwanted by entering their lives and situations and giving them a voice. In 'Bye-Child', the reader is first drawn to a paragraph of information. Pain and suffering is apparent right from the beginning, as Heaney mentions words such as 'confined' and 'incapable'. This prepares the reader for the fact that the child is mistreated. Heaney shows his empathy immediately towards the child, and it is clear that he feels strongly towards this inhuman act. We are then reminded of the neglect of the child with 'a yolk of light' and 'the lamp glowed'. Despite
With close reference to at least two poems, discuss Seamus Heaney's presentation of his childhood in Ireland.
Anna Bowman With close reference to at least two poems, discuss Seamus Heaney's presentation of his childhood in Ireland. Death of a Naturalist is about where Heaney played as a child and how he reflects back on it as an adult. Early purges has a similar theme except it is set on a farmyard and is more domestic. Both poems tell a tale of the death of an aspect of Heaney's childhood. Death of A Naturalist is set in an area called the flax-dam. This is an area surrounding a pond where amongst other plants; cotton plants (flax) grew. Heaney expresses his feelings and thoughts about the Flax-dam with two different voices. The voice of Heaney as an adult is shown when he uses more sophisticated language and polysyllabic words, "...festered..." and "...sweltered..." These are two examples of words, which would be so mature for a child to use. As Heaney comes into using the second voice he simplifies his language to that of a child. "But best of all was the warm thick slobber of frogs spawn that grew like clotted water." This simile is very strong and describes the way that a child may see frogs spawn and so shows that Heaney is looking back through the eyes of a child. "...like clotted water..." Heaney describes the Flax-dam as, "festered" and "heavy-headed" this creates an image of dirt and danger, in his childhood. He also describes the sun as, "...the punishing
We looked at the poems The Behaviour of Dogs and Flying to Belfast, 1977 by Craig Raine.
Craig Raine Coursework We looked at the poems The Behaviour of Dogs and Flying to Belfast, 1977 by Craig Raine. In Raine's poem The Behaviour of dogs he describes to us the many different breeds and types of dog that there are in the world and what effect they have on our lives. In the poem Craig Raine describes dogs in a different way than we would normally think of them to make us see them in unfamiliar ways. To make the dogs' actions easier for us to imagine he uses imagery of things we see in everyday life and on television but that we don't usually associate with dogs, "Their feet are four-leafed clovers that leave a jigsaw in the dust". This start of the poem is describing dogs' feet. Saying the dog's feet are four-leafed clovers is describing the shape of the dogs paw, but also four-leafed clovers are associated with good luck, which gives us a benign and warm association. The second verse is also submitting a friendly atmosphere around dogs when it refers to the way dogs "grin" and "tease us", this shows the good relationship shared between man and dog. Raine describes the teeth of dogs like "Yale keys" suggesting that they are serrated, jagged and sharp, Raine also uses imagery to describe the way a dog's tongue slips out as it pants, "joke-shop Niagara tongues," this line also includes an element of humour if you imagine a massive joke-shop tongue! In the
Compare and contrast two of Seamus Heaney's sonnets, 'The Forge' and 'Strange Fruit'.
Vivian Yuen 12JN September 18, 2003 English A1 SL Compare and contrast two of Seamus Heaney's sonnets, 'The Forge' and 'Strange Fruit'. The Forge is a descriptive poem in which Heaney celebrates local craftsmanship, explores cultural roots, and discusses social history. The forge described in the poem in one that the poet passed every day on his way to school. Using the smith, an ordinary person, as a metaphor of himself, Heaney celebrates artists in the community, as well as the creation, beauty and perfection in art. The central idea, however, appears to be the mystery and sacredness of this creative process. The work of the forge is presented as an extended metaphor for the construction of a work of art in general (in Heaney's case the crafting of poetry). The reader, as an on-looker, is 'outside' peering in at the 'unpredictable' and inexplicable mystery. One may catch glimpses of the beauty in the making, 'the fantail of sparks', or hear snatches of its elegant sound, 'the short pitched ring' or the 'hiss', but the creation of art remains a mystery, beyond the reach of the non-artist. Strange Fruit is one in a trilogy of poems known as the 'bog poems' by Heaney. This set of poems predominantly reflects upon the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, where killings were ritualistic and offerings from the villages to ensure a good harvest the following year. This