A comparison of ‘An Advancement of Learning’ and ‘The Early Purges’ by Seamus Heaney

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A comparison of 'An Advancement of Learning' and 'The Early Purges' by Seamus Heaney

In this essay I intend to compare the two poems 'An Advancement of Learning' with 'The Early Purges' both written by Seamus Heaney.

'An Advancement of Learning' is a poem about a person who starts as a young boy afraid of rats. When walking along the riverbank he would always defer the bridge and avoid the rats. Through his journeys he experiences a number of feelings which are illustrated to us through changes of tone. He experiences peacefulness, which turns to revulsion and surprise, when he 'established a dreaded Bridgehead' when trapped by two rats, soon to horror. One day when he is older he confronts his fear and there is sense of relief, combat and victory to which, in the end, turns to absolute victory as for once in his life he stares the rat out and crosses the bridge. In doing so he enters into adulthood and loses all the innocence he started with.

The second of the Heaney poems being compared in this essay is 'The Early Purges'. 'The Early Purges' talks of a young lad who is brought up on a farm. The poem begins when the boy is six, which is the first face-to-face encounter he ever experienced with the death of animals. The poem then refers to a farm labourer, Dan Taggart who regards the useless kittens on the farm as 'scraggy wee shits'. The word 'shits' may be as a warning to the reader and may act as censorship so as to suggest to the reader that the poem is brutal and shocking as Heaney then goes on to describe the horrific murder process of the kittens as they were drowning, 'Soft paws scarping like mad. But they're tiny din soon soused'. As the poem continues the narrator grows older and speaks of the fact that life on a farm 'displaces false sentiments'. Soon it 'makes sense' when the animals are killed. As the town people cry ' 'Prevention of cruelty' ' the farm life goes on where the 'pests have to be kept down'.
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There are a number of similarities between the two Heaney poems. As in most Heaney poems such as 'Death of a Naturalist' and 'Blackberry Picking' the poems are both first person narrated. Both 'An Advancement of Learning' and 'The Early Purges' portray a person where after they are put through some kind of ordeal then reach mentally a point of maturity.

The main changes of tome occur in each poem at a similar point. At a point when something vital to the whole poem happens for example when the kittens drown in 'The Early Purges' or when ...

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