What do we learn of Seamus Heaney, both as a child and as an adult, from the selection of poetry studied? (Use quotations if you feel this would help)

Louise Downie Poetry Coursework What do we learn of Seamus Heaney, both as a child and as an adult, from the selection of poetry studied? (Use quotations if you feel this would help) After studying a selection of poetry by Heaney I have decided to discuss the poems 'Mid Term Break', 'Blackberry Picking' and 'Death of A Naturalist' to answer the above question. In particular the poems 'Blackberry Picking' and 'Death of A Naturalist' are similar in the way that they show Heaney looking back at his childhood, and showing his reluctance to grow up and his refusal to accept reality. Heaney uses irony is his work, and the title 'Mid Term Break' is ironic, it gives the reader the wrong idea. Reading the title makes you think its going to be a nice happy poem about a Childs half term holiday but it's the total opposite. In this poem Heaney is reflecting on his past, and at first has created the mood of anticipation with his lines ; 'I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close' From the above lines we learn that Heaney was away at boarding school as a child, and on that occasion had been called out to the college sick bay and, unaware what's going on but senses that something urgent is happening because the bells where knelling, which only

  • Word count: 1883
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"An advancement of learning" and "Churning Day" both looks back at a memory of the poets past/ childhood. Compare how these poems deal with the relationship of past and present with "The Sick Equation"

Post 1900 poetry "An advancement of learning" and "Churning Day" both looks back at a memory of the poets past/ childhood. Compare how these poems deal with the relationship of past and present with "The Sick Equation" Seamus Heaney has written 'An Advancement of Learning' and 'Churning Day'. Heaney, born in Northern Ireland in 1939 has therefore had quite a difficulty background. Most of his poems are about his childhood. Both 'Churning Day' and 'Advancement of Learning' look back on a childhood memory that is comforting to Heaney. In 'An Advancement of Learning' Heaney recalls coming across a rat when he was a child and he remembers being afraid of it. Heaney manages to overcome his fear and walk on past the rat, showing him growing a little wiser realising that the rat is no threat and advancing to another stage in his childhood; a braver one. I think the rat experience in the past has helped him in the present and future as he once could overcome the fear of the rat, and he could remember this time and think 'if I did it then, then I could do it now' with similar problems. The poem 'Churning Day' also has a similar concept; in looking back at the memory it can help him now in the present and future. 'Churning Day' is a comforting poem for Heaney, it celebrates the good times he had when churning as it brought the family together; it was a happy time. So when things

  • Word count: 1343
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"Compare how Gillian Clarke and Seamus Heaney present different images of the past".

"Compare how Gillian Clarke and Seamus Heaney present different images of the past" Both poets, Seamus Heaney and Gillian have different nationalities and backgrounds. Seamus Heaney is from a traditional Irish Farming background. The majority of his family are also farmers. Whereas Gillian Clarke is Welsh, and was probably bought up in an urban background. Heaney indicates from his poems that he wants to share his past memories; he wants people to know about periods of his youth life. All his poems are centred on past memories. In comparison to Gillian Clarke whose work in poems are about what memories are, and reasons for respecting memories. 'Follower', by Heaney is about his life on the farm. From the first line he starts to discuss his images from the past. "My father worked with a horse-plough" The rest of the first verse describes what image Heaney had of his father. "His shoulders globed like a full sail strung ... ... strained at his clicking tongue." This verse shows that his father is a strong, powerful figure. It gives a good impression of him. "horse strained at his clicking tongue" This implies he is a skilled worker, as all he has to do is click his tongue and the horses strained for him. In the second verse Heaney talks about his father being "an expert", and this is emphasised, as this is what this verse starts with. This verse may be saying

  • Word count: 1832
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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"Digging" by Seamus Heaney

"Digging" The poem "Digging" by Seamus Heaney is a very intriguing poem that carries across much meaning to the reader of the poem. The dramatic situation that is described is a son, who appears to be a writer, looking back onto his past and thinking about the work his father and grandfather did. Through the use of strong language and many poetic devices, Seamus Heaney has given a whole new meaning to the idea of 'digging'. Heaney uses precise words and a very effective style to portray the idea of a son looking back on the work of his ancestors and realizing just how he fits into his family's history and tradition. There are basically two ideas upon how the character fits into his family tradition. The character has broken away from the farming custom of his family, but yet he still maintains the idea of creating and using tools very precisely with his new line of work, writing. However, another interesting detail about the poem "Digging" is how the character in the poem can be seen as Seamus Heaney himself. Heaney too was a writer and his family also ran a farm. As a result of this, the poem acquires much more feeling and emotion and the author can be seen as talking about himself. When looking at the first stanza, one realizes that it is only two lines, however, this does not take away from its importance. The character describes basically himself at the

  • Word count: 1427
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Discussing two or three Poems in Detail, Explain how you think Heaney Develops our Understanding of the Nature of Humanity and Existence through Poetry

Discussing two or three Poems in Detail, Explain how you think Heaney Develops our Understanding of the Nature of Humanity and Existence through Poetry In this essay I will discuss the poems Digging, Wheels within Wheels and Toome. I will explain how Heaney develops our understanding of humanity and existence through the poems mentioned above. Heaney mainly uses poetic techniques to express and expand our understanding of the nature of existence and humanity. The ideas in Digging concern relationships to ancestors, and to work. Heaney describes his relationship to his father and grandfather purely in terms of their work on the land. He takes the idea of digging, the commonest form of work in any rural community, and uses it as a symbol for productive, creative work in general, and for writing in particular. The idea in Wheels within Wheels are about life in the metaphor of a wheel. Toome is about the bog type land and the past. I think Heaney develops our understanding of the nature of humanity by bringing the theme of relationships on the farm into this poem. Heaney's father has great skill when it comes to digging, "levered firmly. This shows the reader that country life is not all easy, and even to work on a farm, you need to have quite a lot of skill. The images produced by these words are very effective because they give the reader a picture of a man who is not only

  • Word count: 1119
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Poem Analysis: Mid-term Break

Poem Analysis: Mid-term Break Seamus Heaney himself is the narrator in the poem, Mid-term Break, a sad story from his childhood. It depicts the reactions of everyone around him and of himself to a death in the family. It does this through the poem's three parts: the waiting at school, the behaviour of everyone at home, and his solitary viewing of the body. This poem is unsentimental but full of emotions. The first stanza introduces Seamus sitting alone at school, in the "sick bay". He is waiting, and time passes slowly as he counts "bells knelling classes to a close". This tells the reader that the mid-term break is not a school holiday, as classes are still taking place. The boy is eventually picked up by his neighbours, which shows the reader that his parents are too busy to pick up their son, so it must be an important occasion. The next stanza starts with Seamus arriving home, and in the porch meeting his father, who is crying. This stanza tells us that we are witnessing a funeral. The reader still does not know who has died, but we know that it is a family member, perhaps a sibling or even the boy's mother. In the third stanza, the baby "cooed and laughed"; this shows the baby's innocence and lack of awareness of what is happening. At this point the only emotion that the narrator expresses is embarrassment by the way older men are treating him; like an adult.

  • Word count: 1349
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Digging’ and ‘Early Purges’

Diverse cultures and Traditions in 20th Century poetry Introduction For the Diverse Cultures assignment, I have studied pieces by Seamus Heaney. These include 'Digging' and 'Early Purges'. All the poems relate back to his young life in Limavady in the County of Derry, Northern Ireland. When Heaney was young, he wanted to follow in his fathers and grandfathers footsteps of being farmers. Not just that, but being the eldest child in his family, he was expected to. Instead however, he turned his back on his family's great tradition, and decided to become a writer instead. As said, Heaney did want to become a farmer, this was expressed in the poem 'Follower', where he describes the way his father used to plough fields. The title itself shows there was once an ambition to follow. Furthermore, the pride that Heaney expresses in his family's age-old tradition is articulated in the poem 'Digging': "By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man". He goes on to describe that his grandfather was the finest turf-cutter on 'Toner's bog'. His chosen option not to follow 'rural convention' created an entirely diverse world for Heaney. The fact that he went to a boarding school in a city (St. Columb's college) would be enough of a culture shock. There were no kittens being drowned, as described in 'Early Purges', here. That type of thing was seen as inhumane, but to him,

  • Word count: 1504
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare The Barn and An Advancement of Learning - How does Heaney present childhood fears and imagination?

Compare The Barn and An Advancement of Learning. How does Heaney present childhood fears and imagination? In the two Seamus Heaney poems', "The Barn," and "An Advancement of Learning," there are a number of similarities and differences between them. One key similarity is the theme of rats. In, "The Barn," the boy explores around and once he walks into a cobweb, he gets a fright and tries to get away into the sunlit yard. The boy has nightmares in the poem and the large, heavy corn sacks are described as, "great blind rats," whereas in, "An Advancement of Learning," the rats are actually real and they scuttle past in front of his eyes. They are portrayed as arrogant and disgusting. Heaney says, "The rats slobbered out of the water, smudging the silence." We begin to imagine revolting beasts all wet and disgusting scurrying about the riverbanks. What is very similar about the two poems is that they are both very autobiographical and recall childhood memories. "The Barn," is about Heaney's past experience of the barn and he tells us of all the feelings he felt at the time. In, "An Advancement of Learning," Heaney refers to how he used to panic when his grey brothers scraped and fed behind the hencoop in his yard and on ceiling boards above his bed. Both poems link to the childhood phobia, which in this case happens to be rats. Both poems are narrated in the first person. This

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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After reading the two poems Digging and Follower, discuss the relationship that Heaney writes about between himself and his father.

Seamus Heaney After reading the two poems Digging and Follower, discuss the relationship that Heaney writes about between himself and his father. I am going to compare two different poems written by Seamus Heaney. The names of these two poems are "Digging" and "Follower". Both of these poems were written when Seamus Heaney had started his career in poetry. Heaney was the eldest of nine children and grew up in poor conditions, as his father was a potato farmer, just as his forefathers. The poems are basically Heaney's autobiography, where he is explaining what happened in his past. Heaney was born when there were Catholic and Protestant riots were occurring and it was a troubled time for him and his family. The two poems are similar because they both describe Heaney at a young age, when he used to be "tripping, falling, yapping always". This was meant to prove that Heaney was always behind his father, but the second poem has a real twist to it at the end, which I will describe to you further in to this essay. Heaney is probably writing this poem in his room, and looking out into his old farm which is bringing back his memories of being a child. His room would be dimly lit to show the bluntness in his vocabulary. This also depicts that fact that his language is not flowery, or there is no glorification of any part of his father's job, but just going straight to the point.

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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Compare "Follower" and "Digging"

Compare "Follower" and "Digging" In the both poems Heaney reveals that he has an agricultural background running through his family, in "follower" he only talks about his father's generation being a father and in "digging" he talks about himself, his father and his grand father being diggers. In both poems the author talks about himself watching his past generations farming and explains that they are very skilled. Both poems are very alike in some ways like these, but for example in "Follower" Heaney says that the boy was always a nuisance to his father "tripping, falling, yapping always." On the other hand, in "digging" the boys talks about his father and grandfather how they are so skilled, but he seems to appreciate their skills and look up to them but he wants to follow something different in life, " but I've no spade to follow men like them, Between my finger and my thumb, the squat pen rests, I'll dig with it" this extract makes it sound like he wants to dig up some history of some sort, maybe family history, that isn't supposed to be known about. In this poem both father and son talk about how good their fathers can handle a spade. In "Follower" the boy thinks his father of "an expert" .The father didn't seem very generous with the child; "sometimes he rode me on his back" the boy says this as if it were a real treat. The boy in this poem wants to grow up and be just

  • Word count: 384
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: English
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