Comparison of Heaney's 'at a Potato Digging' and Hardy's 'Autumn Midnight.

Jane Smiley’s ‘A Thousand Acres’ is a modern day representation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. The text tales a tragic story of a family of a troubling past, willingly watching each others lives decay as the tragedy unfolds. In spite of it’s similarities to ‘King Lear’, this work of literature is a work of its own. The text constructs a clear distinction of American rural Space, this is through foreground economic and social issues raised throughout the text of the perception that is driven by ones understanding of self and the world they live in.

On another level, Cowper’s use of iambic tetrameter (four-beat) lines arranged in eight-line stanzas of alternatively rhyming couplets (ababcdcd) is perfectly in harmony with the content. The fast, strongly marked beat stresses the Negro’s zealous expressions of the horrors of slavery, and adds to the musicality inherent in the ballad form. The choice of end-rhyme words (such as “pleasures” and “treasures”, “gold” and “sold”, as well as “dealings” and “feelings”) testifies the Negro’s refutation of the slave traders’ claims through an ironic analogy between slaves’ aspiration for simplest human necessities, and slave traders’ malicious greed for the utmost materialistic benefits. Despite the fact that the lines are generally short, enjambment – by which is meant “the effect caused when the semantic content of a phrase carries on beyond the end of the line” (Roberts 278) – is prevailing throughout the poem:

Compare the ways in which Larkin and Abse write about place. You must include detailed critical discussion of at least two poems by Larkin in your response.

This poem is Larkin’s monologue about work. Larking walks through a park and even though he finds it an appealing and pleasurable sight, he would rather like to keep himself busy with work. He does not want to be lazy like the people at the park but would rather like to perform his duties meticulously so that when he dies he can have the satisfaction of having worked so hard. Toad Revisited is Larkin’s mental debate in which he weighs the advantages and disadvantages of work and of leisure; and comes to the definite conclusion that work is preferable to sloth or to leisure unlike the people around him. Toad work refers to the easy work that people do that does not need much intelligence or skills.

The poem opens with the word “and,” implying a continuation from a previous thought, then progresses into a panoramic description of a “tractor with its hoisted plough,” the “breathing land” and “freshly turned earth.” This allows the reader to visualize the land and farm equipment in motion, but also highlights the apparent stillness of the narrator in the center of all this motion. The speaker only references himself in the first line, “And there I was in the middle of a field,” (1) and from that point takes a more detached approach. This stillness, when juxtaposed with the movement and life found in his surroundings, emphasizes a certain disconnection and unfamiliarity between the returning soldier and the field. The euphonic, displaced, and foreign tone Heaney uses throughout the poem serves to emphasize this feeling.

From a vantage point that spans time and place, the poet condemns the horrors of the Middle

B.H. Fairchild, the son of a lathe operator, was able to identify with the working class in his poetry due to his personal experience. In analyzing three of B.H. Fairchild’s poems a general

Looking at “Toads”, in the perspective of the poet, we start to see that there is certain imagery in the poem that tells us a lot about the poets’ view on work. The fact that the poet effectively sees work as a “sickening poison” tells the reader he feels work, in essence, make us ill. To a certain extent we realise that Larkin actually despises work: seeing it

How have the composers of the poems you will be discussing constructed their representations of women? Compare and contrast the themes and values represented in your two chosen poems.

Upon looking at these two poems, the reader automatically sees fundamental differences. In spite of that, once read and analyzed,

Heaney's first anthology Death of a Naturalist is the best source for poems that show how common and often mundane things are described in beautiful language and rediscovered as meaningful activities. "Digging", Blackberry-Picking" and "Personal Helicon" are prime examples of Kavanagh's words.

In this poem, “Row” Ralph Pomeroy’s creates a special rhythm that in turn creates a special atmosphere of all the poem. The first thing is clear from the first line is that he uses assonance as a poetic device. Assonance is a resemblance of sound between syllables of nerdy words, arising particularly from the rhythming of two or more stressed vowels. This device helps to create a special way the overall poem sounds to the listener. Same vowels are repeated in every line. However, there are different repeated vowels in each particular line. They are divided by long pauses that the reader unconsciously makes in preparation to a new vowel sound. Such device helps to make the whole poem sound more melodic and more harmonious. This device also helps

Brathwaite however uses the ‘Limbo Stick’ Lowering to show signs of submission and getting higher to show the path they have to fight for, the path to freedom. Brathwaite too uses this technique too imply on the pain and suffering in everyday life the West Africans went through in the poem ‘Limbo’ before and after they were exploited, as did the Vietimese people of Levertov’s ‘What were they like?’ Sound techniques are useful to emphasise important ideas within a poem.

In the opening of “Summer Farm” by Norman MacCaig, the persona is in a state of thoughtlessness and presents the reader with images of life on the farm. “Straws like tame lightnings hang lie about the grass. Green as glass the water in the horse trough shines.” The minute details and descriptions of the farm are reflective of how the poet is able to perceive his external surroundings

In his nostalgic poem, “Digging,” there are many messages Heaney conveys about how he was exposed to a different environment than his forefathers and how he did not choose to continue his family’s agricultural heritage. According to critic Carolyn Meyer, Heaney was torn between a rural life at home and the formal life he was exposed