A Comparison Of Trout and Cow in Calf by Seamus Heaney

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A Comparison Of Trout and Cow in Calf by Seamus Heaney

  The poem “Trout” is a description of a trout’s movements through a river. It uses much repeated imagery and similes to achieve this description of the trout.

  The poem is made up of four stanzas, each of four lines, and then a single isolated line at the end of the poem.

  The poem has no regular rhyme scheme, however, it does contain one internal rhyme in the third stanza:

“Where the water unravels/ over gravel-beds”

  The rhythm of the poem is irregular; Heaney uses punctuation and enjambment to achieve this irregularity. At the beginning on the first and fourth stanzas he uses punctuation to isolate the first word of these stanzas, changing the natural rhythm of the poem.

  I will now examine “Trout” in detail, line by line.

  Heaney uses two pieces of imagery on the first line:

“Hangs, a fat gun-barrel”

  The word “Hangs” is isolated from the rest of the line by the comma which follows it. This gives us an image of isolation or suspension, this is interesting because the word “Hangs” gives us an image of isolation or suspension. This use of punctuation helps to change the rhythm of the line, making it irregular.

  The rest of the line is a metaphor, Heaney is likening the body of a trout to “a fat gun-barrel”. This gives us an image of the trout being like a gun, not in just the shape of it, but also the destructive quality that a gun has.

“slips like butter down/the throat of the river”

  This is the first use of a simile in the poem, which Heaney uses regularly in this poem. Heaney is comparing the movement of the Trout through the river to the movement of butter down a throat. The word “slips” contains much sibilance, which makes it sound as if the passage of the trout is smooth, without obstruction.

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  This image of smoothness is continued in the second stanza, Heaney uses the simile “smooth-skinned as plums” to describe the movement of the trout.

  The gun or shooting image used at the beginning of the poem is reused in the next line:

“his muzzle gets the bull’s eye”

  The word “muzzle” is ambiguous, it is calling the trout’s mouth a “muzzle” this is the name for a mouth of an animal, or the mouth of a gun, which revives the shooting image. The shooting image is reused in the second half of the ...

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The essay writer has done a lot of useful analysis here, though s/he sometimes makes claims that are unsupported by the evidence indicated. There is little in the way of introduction or conclusion, so we do not know what the writer's intentions are or whether s/he has achieved them. Paragraphing is generally poor and there are punctuation errors. Lexis is mostly up to the task. 3 stars