Augustan Poetic Tradition Essay

In Seamus Heaney’s poetry, there is a recurring theme of his talking of the past, and more predominantly about significant moments in time, where he came to realisations that brought him to adulthood. In “Death of a Naturalist” Heaney describes a moment in his childhood where he learnt that nature was not as beautiful as seem to be when he was just a naive child. Heaney does this on a deeper level in “Midterm Break” describes his experience of his younger brothers funeral and the mixed, confusing feelings he encountered, consequently learning that he no longer was a child, and had no choice but to be exposed to reality. Robert Frost in one sense also describes particular moments in time, where his narrator comes to realisations. However,

How far does this statement apply to and sum up Seamus Heaney’s intentions in writing poetry?

The poem’s stylistic value comes from its lack of a complete, overbearing structure. Whereas a strict meter would inhibit a poet from fully expressing the breath of their emotions, using the words they feel are best suited to their meaning, the loose, almost free-verse Anglo-Saxon structure allows for the poet

While great wars, murders, and crimes continue to pervade our society today, the atrocities of the past seem to loom over these in the present and reopen years’ old wounds that threaten to turn into scars. This is especially true of the Northern Ireland conflict. Although a timeline may tell a person that the conflict lasted from the 1960’s to 1998, supposedly ending with the Good Friday Agreement, the turmoil and healing in Northern Ireland is nowhere near its finality. Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet born a mere 20 years before the conflict began, was deeply affected by the conflict and the impact it had on himself and his family. Many of Heaney’s poems reflect upon the “Troubles”, which no doubt influenced many of his other pieces, but generally did not make any explicitly aggressive statements of a political nature toward the Northern Ireland conflict or other incidents; he merely saw himself as a poet who reflected on what he witnessed and lived through. However, Heaney himself stated that “All of us probably had some notion that a good poem was ‘a paradigm of good politics’, a site of energy and tension and possibility, a truth-telling arena…” (Jensen 18). He believed that there was an element of politics involved with writing poetry. However, he continued to say it was “not a killing field” (18). In other words, he did not believe that it was his duty as a poet to be political. His own words defied him in the writing of one of his poems “Punishment”, which is about the

Throughout his life, Augustus, the first emperor of Rome and self-proclaimed “restorer of the Republic”, sought to improve society. After a disastrous century of disorder, internal turmoil and a political system that was ultimately unsatisfactory for the empire, Augustus attempted to formulate a new Roman government and way of life. He believed that the degradation of Rome was due in large part to a “breakdown in religious tradition as well as political and moral order. Old rites had been forgotten, old temples were allowed to crumble in neglect, and the gods were angry with this”. Augustus attempted to renew peace and stability in Rome through political and

Poetry is used to express several different mediums through: structure, tone, imagery and rhyme schemes. John Keats’s ode “To Autumn” and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Kubla Khan” or, a Vision in a Dream” will be critically analyzed, compared and contrasted to each throughout this paper to further dissected the meaning of each poem.

Those who have read him consider Heaney to be the most influential Irish poet, and that his talent is unparalleled with any other poet of his generation. One critic writes, “ Heaney was never challenged to excel beyond his great achievements, when he clearly had phenomenal talent” (Catholic Herald). Through his poems you can see his life story and how he was shaped as a writer. In every poem there’s a window to his life you can open and peer into his life. He leaves a vivid tale through his work all you have to do is venture into his writing. Seamus Heaney helped influence the lives of everyone who has ever read his

I do not know how without being culpably particular I can give my Reader a more exact notion of the style in which I wished these poems to be written, than by informing him that I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subject; consequently, I hope that there is in these Poems little falsehood of description, and my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance. Something I must have gained by this practice, as it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense; but it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and figures of speech which from father to son have long been regarded as the common inheritance of

Horace’s work does indeed showcase his view of literary culture of that time, highlighting the change that is occurring and setting rules and boundaries of writing poetry.

I have been asked before you today to discuss my opinion on the poetry of Seamus Heaney, and although this style of learning wouldn’t be what you’d be used to, I’m hoping you will all benefit from what I have to say and leave here with a clear understanding of Heaney’s brilliance, questioning the meaning behind what he has written.

The utility of poetry has been debated for thousands of years; around 2,500 years ago Plato called for it to be banned for its lack of utility. Plato’s views on poetry were not wrong; looking at it from a purely practical point of view, poetry is not a necessity. It is incomparable to what society considers essential – medicine, technology, leadership. If there were an apocalypse in the future, and we could select only a few people to survive it, the poet would not stand a chance. And yet, this is not necessarily a bad thing. When something is considered useful, it must always be useful; there is a lot of pressure on scientists to continue to invent, and continue to help. This pressure to be productive and to consistently strive for perfection is not placed upon the shoulders of poets, who must understand that their craft is not, rationally speaking, necessary for survival. Along with society’s acknowledgments, the philosophers and engineers, Plato’s logical giants – the Goliaths of the world – will also get its expectations. The poets, like David from the biblical story, will match the Goliaths by using a different strength, not the tool of pragmatism. They are underestimated, and the lack of expectations on them gives them their strength: the room to be foolish, to be blunt, and to be imperfect. In short, poetry is useful because we do not think it is; as Sylvia Plath’s brutally truthful poems demonstrate, in poetry there is freedom to

“Poets make very specific language choices when composing poetry and these are intended to have a specific effect on the reader and meaning.”

In 1995 Heaney won the Nobel Prize in Literature, being the second Irish poet to do so. He wrote five major works in his lifetime: Death of a Naturalist, North, The Haw Lantern, District and Circle, and Beowulf; A New Translation. Heaney’s constant switch between two continents earned him audiences in Ireland, Britain, and America. He’s earned many other prestigious awards including the W.H. Smith Award,

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”

It was during the Elizabethan age that England felt the complete effect of the Renaissance. There occurred a revival of the old and classical literature of Greece and Rome and this was manifested in the poetry of the age. The Elizabethan age was characterized by an extreme spirit of adventure, aestheticism and materialism which became the characteristic features of Elizabethan poetry. Many poets displayed their skill in versification during this time and England came to be called The Nest Of Singing Birds.