How does Seamus Heaney present his childhood in the poems "Follower" and "Mid-Term Break".
Matthew Barrett How does Seamus Heaney present his childhood in the poems "Follower" and "Mid-Term Break" Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet who wrote the two poems in a similar fashion. Heaney clearly wrote about different aspects and experiences of his childhood. The two poems I have studied are "Follower" and "Mid-Term Break". Both of the poems have ironic, interesting titles. The title "Follower" is used to describe Heaney's unusual relationship with his father. Heaney, as a young boy, grew up around his father, who was always working on their farm. Heaney may have applied the word "Follower" to describe how he used to regard his father as a hero or as someone he could emulate. In the poem he wrote, "I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake" which can be interpreted as to "Follow" in his footsteps. The title "Mid-Term Break" is very ironic. The reader is at once tricked into believing that the poem will be about Heaney's happy memories from his school holidays. This is not so as the poem is actually about how Heaney is going home to the funeral of his brother: A quite sad and dramatic event in his childhood. "Follower" and "Mid-Term Break" are both about Heaney and his relationship with his family. The poem "Follower" describes his relationship with his father. "Mid-Term Break" is all about the dramatic death of his younger brother during the holiday period. Seamus Heaney
Compare 'Digging' and 'Follower' by Seamus Heany
. Compare the ways in which 'Follower' and 'Digging' explore the theme of changes due to passing time Both 'Follower' and 'Digging' explore the theme of changes due to passing time. 'Follower' begins in the past tense, which demonstrates Heaney looking back into his past; whereas 'Digging' begins in the present tense, which suggests he is looking at his current situation whilst reflecting on memories and childhood experiences. The title 'Digging' explores the theme of changes due to passing time, as Heaney knows that he has no spade to follow men like his father and grandfather-he is a writer, not a farmer so will dig with his pen. Throughout the poem, Heaney draws close emphasis to childhood experiences, detailing sensory images, which suggest that these memories are important to him as he remembers them so clearly. Therefore, this suggests that the idea of 'digging' represents Heaney digging though his past and him digging into the English language to say and express what he wants to say, as words are now his tool. Heaney uses change in tense in 'Follower' to indicate his change in views and ideas. When he remembers about his father and grandfather at work he goes into the past tense but the last two stanzas return to the present. This suggests that his life on the farm as a child is in his past and he has a new life. He doesn't want to 'handle the spade' like his
English Literature Coursework - Nostalgia
Compare and contrast three poems from the English Literature Anthology where the speakers of the poems display strong nostalgic thoughts through theme, structure, language, mood and tone of the poems. Three poems where the speakers show strong nostalgic thoughts for the past are Piano by D.H. Lawrence, Poem at Thirty-Nine by Alice Walker and Crabbit Old Woman by Phyllis McCormack. They all display the common theme of wanting to return to the past, away from the pain, loneliness and the trials and tribulations of adulthood. In this essay, I will analyse how the poets convey their feelings through their use of literary structure, theme, language, mood and tone. The theme of nostalgia is expressed through each of the three speakers' different experiences. In Piano, the speaker is taken "back down the vista of years" and re-calls happier memories from his childhood. This happens when he hears a piano being played which is the trigger so that his "manhood is cast/Down in the flood of remembrance". This indicates that the poet yearns for the past and he feels less of a man when he reminisces. It also suggests that when he remembers his childhood and his memories rush towards him, reducing him to tears. In Poem at Thirty-Nine, the speaker remembers how she "learned to see bits of paper as a way to escape the life he knew". This shows that she remembers lessons like the value of
Compare Themes of "Love and Loss" from "When we two Parted" by Lord Byron and "first Love" by John Clare
Question Explore the themes of "love and Loss' and how they are expressed in the poems "When we two parted" by Lord Byron and "first Love" by John Clare. Answer "When we two parked" by Lord Byron and "First Love" by John Clare both deal with love that was once dear and is lost. While "When we two parked" is about the unhappy end of a clandestine romance, "First Love" is about unrequited love. The title of "When we two parked" is direct and provides a glimpse of Byron's feeling of heartbreak, despair and desolation. Reiterated in the first line, it lends the poem a tone of sadness and melancholy. The words "First Love" summons a feeling of innocence and naïveté, the poet has never been in love before and is doomed to get his heart broken. His title lends a tone of hope, which is ultimately crushed, making it an ironic title. The regular 'ABABCDCD' rhyming scheme of both these poems lends a feeling of constant loss and desolation. Enjambment is used to mirror the chaos of the poet's feelings, in "When we two parked". "First Love" has punctuation marks after almost every line, mirroring the poet's innocence. Both the poems use vivid imagery of cold. "First Love" uses 'snow' and 'winter' to mirror desolation after the first exhilaration of love; and the snow symbolises the death of the poet's love. "When we two parked" uses 'chill' and 'dew' to explore the feelings of
Poetry Comparison - "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" and "Futility".
Poetry Comparison - "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" and "Futility" Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Wilfred Owen both write about events during war, but their poems are presented very differently. By using different form, structure and language, "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" comes across as a very public poem. This compares to Owen's private poem "Futility". In these poems, the soldiers are presented as brave during battle. Tennyson's "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" is comprised of six verses or stanzas, varying in length from six to twelve lines. Each line has two stressed syllables, called dimeter, and each stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed syllables. This rhythm gives the effect of hoof beats, helping the reader to imagine horses galloping, charging into battle. The use of the "falling" rhythm, in which the stress beat comes first, and then "falls off", shapes the underlying message of the devastating fall of the Light Brigade. The poem is largely effective because of the way it conveys the movement and noise of the charge, through the strong and repetitive falling meter. "Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward," This gives the impression of the whole brigade obeying a command to charge rather than concentrating on the individual efforts of a soldier. The rhyme scheme in "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" varies with each stanza, as does the
I am going to compare and contrast two stories the first 'The Fury' and the second 'A Bit of a Commotion' which were both written by Stan Barstow.
'A Bit of a Commotion' & 'The Fury' I am going to compare and contrast two stories the first 'The Fury' and the second 'A Bit of a Commotion' which were both written by Stan Barstow. 'The Fury' is a story which shows Mr and Mrs Fletcher who have an argument about Mr Fletcher being seen with another woman which results in her making Mr Fletcher leave, and when he leaves she doesn't think he's going to come back so she kills the one thing that Mr Fletcher spends all his time with and keeps her and her husband apart, his rabbits. But then that evening Mr Fletcher comes back to apologise and tells his wife what really happened that night at the bus stop with the other woman, and Mrs Fletcher realises how stupid she was killing the rabbits. She doesn't tell him that night what she has done but instead enjoys what may be the last night she has with her husband. 'A Bit Of A Commotion' tells the story of Harry Gravener who is a bad time keeper and gets his last warning from work, so he decides to turn over a new leaf. On the morning he decides to do this an old woman gets knocked down which makes him late for work so he decides to go home, but when he gets home to find his wife Phyllis still in and accusing him of not being able to do any thing right. He hits her and that morning she leaves him, but he thinks she'll be back hat night. Later that evening when Phyllis doesn't
Comparing and contrasting
Comparing and contrasting "Porphyria's Lover" and "The Laboratory" Final draft By Stuart Hamilton The opening of "Porphyria's Lover" gives a sullen, depressing description of the weather, which then creates the mood for the whole poem. The storm is both metaphorical and physical because it represents the storm going on outside and the storm going on in the narrator's mind. The image we get from the wind is violent which prepares us for the narrator's mind. Ironic juxtaposition is used here because it blends the lines about the storm to the storm in his mind. " It tore the elm-tops down for spite" The next few lines describe Porphyria. The word "glided" tells us that the lover already sees her as above human, as a sort of spirit and her entrance is magical. The poet changes the word order as she arrives to show that it is a point of climax. "When glided in Porphyria" We can tell at this point that there is a lot of love present because when she arrives his cottage warms up not only because she starts the fire but because she comes in and it makes him all happy and to him it brightens up his cottage. His love for her takes up his whole life. On the other hand in "The Laboratory" the narrator's life is full of hate for her rival who has taken her lover so she tries to kill her. She puts on a glass mask to protect her from the fumes, which already tells us that this
Comparison Of Love Poetry:Remember by Christina Rossetti, How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and When We Two Parted by Lord Byron
Comparison Of Love Poetry: Remember by Christina Rossetti, How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and When We Two Parted by Lord Byron The three poems, Remember by Christina Rossetti; How Do I love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and When We Two Parted by Lord Byron, each explore love and loss in their own unique ways. Remember is, as expected from the title, a solemn lament which is a farewell sonnet to her treasured one. How Do I Love Thee? is again a sonnet of love but is of a love that is present and hopefully will remain forever. The third poem that will be examined is When We Two Parted which tells of a lost secret love that has left a scar on Lord Byron's life. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's impressive How Do I Love Thee? is, as you might suppose, a poem describing the extent of the author's love of her partner. It is one of her "Sonnets from the Portuguese" which were written in her Italian days at the Casa Guidi. Like many of them How Do I Love Thee? takes the form of a patriarchal sonnet which is the most common sonnet form and is for the most part the more appropriate form for love poetry over the English or Shakespearian sonnet or the Spenserian sonnet. Using sonnet form, you would expect the change in tone after the first octet but in this the change is less pronounced with a subtle change to a graver side of love. Though it is so understated it
Consider how Seanus Heany provides us with a view of his childhood in the following poems: Digging, Death of a Naturalist follower, blackberry picking, The barn and mid term break
Consider how Seanus Heany provides us with a view of his childhood in the following poems: Digging, Death of a Naturalist, follower, blackberry picking, The barn and mid term break Sheanus Heany was born in 1939 on a farm in County Derry, Northern Ireland. His poetry is based on the landscape in his farm from his childhood. In his life there is one key feature that changed him from the rest of his family. This was the level of education that he obtained. He went to a decent school unlike his family that enabled him to write and not farm. He is currently a professor of poetry at Oxford. There are two large symbolic features in his poetry. Firstly, the danger in the countryside could be said to represent the danger in Northern Island at the time. Secondly, there is a strong sense of division in his family, which could be linked with Heany growing up in a divided country. His first poem in the Death of a Naturalist is very important. The purpose of it is to symbolise and introduce his circumstances. 'Between my finger and thumb the squat pen rests'. Look at this first sentence. It is telling you he is a writer. He is telling you that the pen rests. This means that he is comfortable with it. In a way he is saying that the pen belongs in his hand. Then he goes on to write 'snug as a gun'. A gun is a weapon. Something used for destruction which poetry is not. But, If you look
Carpet Weavers Morocco
Carpet Weavers, Morocco An analysis of Carol Rumens poem 'Carpet Weavers, Morocco' This poem deals with the issue of child labour in Morocco. In Morocco you will find that most carpets have been made by children who should actually be at school. However their parents can't afford to send them there so they are made to work. Many of them start weaving from the age of five. They are sent to work early because there at least their parents will know that they are fed. This is what Carol Rumens saw when she visited Morocco which inspired her to write this poem. In the first stanza Rumens describes what the children who weave the carpets are like. Looms are the machine on which carpets are made but in the poem they have a second meaning which is that another world is coming into view for them. 'Another world' could be talking about their dreams. The fact that they have oiled and braided hair could indicate that the children don't have time or money to cut their hair so they braid it. 'Their dresses bright' is a metaphor for happiness as bright and colourful things are thought to be happy and joyful. Referring to their heights as melodious chimes is showing that the children are of all ages as they are tall and short. The next stanza describes how the children make the carpet. She refers to the knots in the carpet as television because that is their entertainment whereas in other
