Analyse Two or Three of Heaney's Poems to Show How Common Things Are Raised Up to Angelhood

Heaney continues to do this by glorifying the frogspawn, using alliteration “jam pots of the jellied specks”. This creates a soft and gentle rhythm for the reader, portraying Heaney’s fascination with nature a child.

In Seamus Heaney's poem "personal Helicon" the wells helped the child to mature, throught their passion for wells. The child is so fascinated as child that "they could not keep me from wells (line 1). The child enjoyed everything the well had to offer to him, they "savoured the rich crash when a bucket/Plummeted down at the end of the rope" (line 6-7). The well also fascinated the child to a point where they would drag "out long roots from the soft mulch" (line 11), just to be able to see themselves inside the well. At the same time the speaker was also scaresome of the wells as their were "ferns and tall/ Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection" (line 15-16), this terified the child but not to a point; at the same time it helped them

Two of the poems written by Seamus Heaney, “Digging” and “Blackberry Picking”, contain recurring themes while both discussing entirely different scenes. The first poem, “Digging”, talks about Heaney’s memories of hearing his father digging in the potato garden outside the house. The second poem, “Blackberry-Picking”, carries a similar solemn tone, while describing another memory of Heaney’s of his experience with picking blackberries. These poems by Heaney share similar themes of reflection of his past experiences in which he dissects important life lessons from everyday events such as the passage of time and the uncertainty of life.

So we can see he doesn't feel the same passion about nature any more, it was a "death" of the naturalist. 'Digging' is about a young man who feels that he is not worthy to follow in his father's footsteps. He tells the reader about how great his father and grandfather were, but throughout the poem he says very little about himself. Towards the end his mind is changed. Although his ancestors were hard working men who earned their living through digging, he feels that his writing is a worthy path to follow.

In Geary Hobson’s poem “Deer Hunting”, very different types of diction are used. “Deer Hunting I” has a “redneck” and arrogant diction. “Deer Hunting II” has a peaceful and appreciative diction. Hobson uses contrasting dictions because he wants to emphasize that the way the men hunt in “Deer Hunting I” is disrespectful to nature. “Deer Hunting I” and “Deer Hunting II” are different and alike in several ways.

because he is so much smaller than his father, but he also looks up to

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, “My Father as a Guitar” by Martin Espada, and “Digging” by Seamus Heaney are three poems that look into the past of the authors and dig up memories of the authors fathers. The poems contain similar conflicts, settings, and themes that are essential in helping the reader understand the heartfelt feelings the authors have for their fathers. With the authors of the three poems all living the gust of their life in the 1900’s, their biographical will be similar and easier to connect with each other.

When hiking out to gather them, Heaney describes how the “briars scratched” (10) their wet boots. In this line, the reader’s mind is brought to a wooded area that seems friendly and hospitable except for the clawing briars and bleaching water. It is unmistakable how tiring the work can be, but the poet never mentions his exhaustion. While it takes a great deal of effort to pick berries, they still seem to be fragile to the point that they are annually torn down by the claws of greed. Also, the poet explains how their “hands were peppered/ with thorn pricks (15-16), as the repeated “p” sound places a dimension of anger and pent-up rage to the poem’s tone. The reader up to be pained by the ruined berries, turned into a fleeting memory from their former grace as they become largely forgotten and wasted if they are not eaten immediately. Similarly, the poet points out that unsuppressed desire can lead to this type of selfishness, and can prove to be dangerous if permitted for a long

Though the poem focuses heavily on the speaker’s attempts to satisfy his desire, no greater purpose appears to lie at the end of his quest. The “plate of eyes” that “burned” suggests that the speaker feels like he’s being watched, as if someone is standing and judging him for his thirst. The word “burned” implies that the feeling of being observed left a painful impression on him. The pickers leave the field with “hands peppered with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s” (16). The choice of a comparison to Bluebeard, the violent murderer from a fairytale, suggests that the speakers links his desire with a violent, destructive act, further illustrating the way lust and desire is tangled up with guilt. Those who desire as the pickers do are haunted and tormented by the fruitlessness of their efforts. Furthermore, the poem is structured such that, for the most part, the ends of the lines do not quite rhyme. The “almost rhymes” throughout the poem mirror the disappoint the speakers feels; lines that come close to rhyming are just short of satisfying to read, similar to how the pickers’ quest does not quite fulfill their desire. By interweaving pain and disappointment with the blackberry picking process, the author suggests that with excess greed and desire comes pain and suffering. The pickers know, at least subconsciously, that their trek through the fields has neither an end goal nor a

With virtually any kind of text, critical thinking is required to unveil the true meaning and purpose behind an artist’s work. Whether that text is a poem, novel or film, we as scholars must find evidence to support our claims of the current text. The text I shall be analyzing is the short film Dig, written and directed by Toby Halbrooks. The main story line of this film is of a young girl watching her father dig an unprecedented hole in their own backyard. To the untrained mind, he seems to just be digging for no apparent reason. However, that is not the case at all. The father digging the hole is a metaphor for him attempting to escape his problems shown through the daughter’s eyes. The evidence supplied throughout the film all point to how

Authors often employ loaded language in their works to personify objects and give them human qualities, Robert Frost in his poem “Mowing” utilizes diction that appeals to the sense of hearing to personify an object and create a rhythm that reflects on the actions taking place in the poem. A scythe is given human qualities and used as a symbol for the greater message of the poem. Frost also uses alliteration and other literary techniques in order to comment on the state of farm labor in the early twentieth century.

explains “Heaney’s Digging” in an article in “The Explicator”, how it contains multiple similes throughout the poem. Duffy too also states that it can be related to a common saying that “the pen is lighter than the spade”. Further on in his article he explains just how important that this is to the son/grandson. “These specific memories of digging ever deeper for food and fuel parallel the activity of the mind delving into its own past, and both of these activities are presented as supremely hopes, life-giving rituals of true civilization. Now the crisis of the poem arrives: the speaker would like to continue the work of his predecessors, but with a different though analogous tool” (Duffy, pgs. 44-45). Duffy states it’s a crisis, and things like life-giving rituals, describing just the depth agonizing over this situation.

The author often includes slant rhyme to eliminate the sing song pattern many poems have: “for/hunger” (7-8). The use of descriptive diction allows the reader to clearly visualize the experience. The clear imagery of the berry’s “flesh” (5) sweetened “like thickened wine”

Once the reader can passes up the surface meaning of the poem Blackberry-Picking, by Seamus Heaney, past the emotional switch from sheer joy to utter disappointment, past the childhood memories, the underlying meaning can be quite disturbing. Hidden deep within the happy-go-lucky rifts of childhood is a disturbing tale of greed and murder. Seamus Heaney, through clever diction, ghastly imagery, misguided metaphors and abruptly changing forms, ingeniously tells the tale that is understood and rarely spoken aloud.

All poetry aims to communicate an experience; a body of memory, sensation, or wisdom that contributes significant meaning to the life of a poet and of all human beings. It is the mystery of literature that one may speak of a single, physical incident, yet draw deep universal conclusions from it. Like the Christian dogma of the Word made Flesh, the Christ both fully mortal and fully divine, the best of poetry dwells paradoxically in the realms of both literal and figurative. Seamus Heaney's poem, Blackberry-Picking, exhibits a precise, elegant poetic technique that permits such a simultaneous existence. Through his use of overt religious allusions, intense, metaphorical imagery, and sharply contrasting symbols, Heaney reveals a young protagonist's journey from childhood to adulthood, or in essence, immaturity to maturity, with a focus on the speaker’s reconciliation with an inconvenient yet inevitable truth - in essence, creating a Bildungsroman.