ELLA 4 ... A LEVEL ENGLISH LANG AND LIT

The term ‘poetry’ calls to mind stanzas full of airy, half-sensical lines of perfect rhymes about love, but there is so much more than that if one chooses to look a little deeper. The poetry of Seamus Heaney, in fact, contains multiple meanings with a closer study, giving a more in-depth experience with a greater knowledge of the poem’s purpose. Words, phrases, rhyme scheme, and structure can all contribute to different meanings and interpretations of poetry, which can all be seen in Heaney’s work, especially “Death of a Naturalist”, “Follower”, “From the “Frontier of Writing”, and “Personal Helicon”.

William Blake’s collection of poetry reflects greatly on the distressed life he had. The view that he had of the world, 18th century Europe in particular, affected many people throughout literatures history. He spoke of innocence but also of experience which gave the impression he was once deeply involved with each, although they are very different.

It is oblivious to a baby as to what and why an occurance like this is

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, printed in 1794, “represents the world as it is envisioned by what he calls ‘two contrary states of the human soul’” (Greenblatt, 1452). This collection of poetry is accompanied by pictures, which create a mutually reliant relationship that allows for complete understanding of Blake’s works. “To read a Blake poem without the pictures is to miss something important: that relationship is an aspect of the poem’s argument” (1452). Overall, Blake’s works in Songs of Innocence and Experience provides a greater understanding into human life. Through poetry, Blake juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the corruption of adulthood. Thus, his work allows the reader to see situations from a double-sided lens of innocence and then of experience. These two perspectives, known as the “two contrary states of the human soul”, are independent and each poem is accompanied by another poem; the poem ““Infant Joy” is paired with “Infant Sorrow” and the meek “Lamb” reveals its other aspect of divinity in the flaming, wrathful “Tyger”” (1456). In Songs of Innocence, published in 1789, celebrates the innocence and untainted nature of childhood but it also doubles as a warning to adults. It warns them that the corruption of society and culture is to come and in Songs of Experience, a state of being that encompasses the loss of childhood vitality and corruption caused by social and political influence. The “innocence” and “experience” that Blake

Blake was encouraged to compose a poem about these young children and their brutal lives for the public. The public was not commonly made aware of the abuse but it was acknowledged that the young children were being mistreated through their short-lived years. Yet, history has lost sight of the disgusting conditions the young boys encountered every day. For that reason, understanding with such specifics does help the person who reads Blake’s poem to see more clearly of Blake 's accusation towards humanity for allowing kids to be exposed to practically unlivable

His enemies and critics equated Blake ‘with religious fanatics like Joanna Southcote and lunatics like Richard

Everybody knows the feeling of losing a loved one, a friend, or family member. Everyone has been to at least one funeral, and it’s very sad and at times uncomfortable. The awkward interactions with people saying “sorry” or the feeling of seeing the ones you love be in such pain. In the poem, “Mid-term Break”, published in 1966, Seamus Heaney touches this subject in every aspect. In “Mid-term Break” Heaney tells the story of a young man whose brother has died and he comes home to the funeral. As the boy enters his house he sees things that are now different after the death of his brother. Heaney’s words and use of poetic devices draws a picture of the sad scene.

     Abstract: William Blake's Songs of Innocence contains a group of poetic works that the artist conceptualized as entering into a dialogue with each other and with the works in his companion work, Songs of Experience. He also saw each of the poems in Innocence as operating as part of an artistic whole creation that was encompassed by the poems and images on the plates he used to print these works. While Blake exercised a fanatical degree of control over his publications during his lifetime, after his death his poems became popular and were encountered without the contextual material that he intended to accompany them.

Seamus Heaney is widely recognised as one of the major poets of the twentieth century. Heaney 's Poems are based on real life experiences, which can be related to in only so many ways, because of the differences in the likes of lifestyle and culture. Heaney’s poetry appeals to students as much of it deals with issues of childhood in a manner that is mature and accessible. The poems I have chosen to read to a fifth year class are ‘The Forge’, ‘The Underground’, “Mossbawn: Sunlight” and ‘A Call’. The three themes that seem to be recurring throughout Heaney’s work are, Love, Time and Isolation and I

Poetry is a form of writing that lets the writer have the ability to express themselves in a creative way. This allows the reader to be moved in a way that other literary works cannot. It’s no wonder that poetry has been around for a very long time. With the likes of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Homer, who helped shaped poetry in some way, we often forget those who created wonderful works of art. One of those writers is William Blake. Much of Blake’s inspirations for his poems came from his childhood. Blake had begun having visions when he was around the age of four. He had even once claimed that he had seen God standing right next to his window. Aside from his visions, Blake had a religious upbringing, in which his parents had treated his visions as a gift. It’s easy for one to assume that his upbringing had a huge influence in his poems, as often times one can feel a sense of religious undertones in his writing. To help explore this concept, I will compare and contrast two of Blake's works, “The Tyger” and “The Lamb.” In this essay, I will examine and analyze both poems’ structures, the writing styles of both poems, and give my personal opinion on each of the poems’ purpose.

William Blake is an English poet and printmaker, specially renowned for his poems published in a series titled Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake’s poems firmly explore the comparisons and differences in both old age and infancy, expressing the importance of human growth by alluding to the correlation between human life and the renaissance of nature. In addition, Blake creates a contrast with this joyful concept by conveying the negative aspects of wisdom and moreover, experience. Furthermore, the Romantic Age is represented through many concepts presented in Blake’s poems: when commenting on the individual versus society, the Industrial Revolution and its harmful effects on nature, and religious affiliation. Moreover, his strong views on religion are supported and further enhanced when referencing other texts, most significantly the Bible. The reference of the Bible in Blake’s “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” through the use of symbolism,

Midterm Break, written by Seamus Heaney, is an autobiographical poem based around the theme of tragedy. It is very poignant to hear from an elder brother, who is silenced by the loss of his younger sibling. Based around this theme, the poem describes the terrible trauma Heaney had to go through during his childhood years.

Is human innocent in nature? Engraved on a press, came from William’s Blake handwritten well-known song-like poems—Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing The two Contrary States of the Human Soul—where he envisions a harmonious world where human aptitudes giving away sentimental perception, for a state of delight in which God, man, and nature are integrated so comprehensively that surpass non-human conceptual ability. The word innocence, as defined, is “freedom from sin or moral wrong” (“Innocence”). Blake composed the poems with a unique design, called illuminating writing; according to Encyclopedia Britannica, it’s his “unique technique of publishing both text and hand-colored illustration together.” In addition, Song of Innocence was published in 1789 and were intended to write for the children at that time. Human must free from the insidious constraint of the earthy, material world, to being spiritual symphonized with our creator, God, in the finest—then we will appreciate and benefit from that form of virtuousness. In this essay, I will identify and elaborate on the various points of view of how the speakers in The Little Black Boy, Holy Thursday, and The Divine Image get in touch with God by virtue of their pristine behavior appends to God’s will.

When somebody thinks of Mid-term break, death doesn’t ever come to mind first. School and College kids mainly come to mind, but Seamus Heaney had a different idea to the definition of what Mid-term Break meant to him. Seamus Heaney takes the reader right into the family which provides the evidence that he was talking about his younger brother Christopher, who was killed by a vehicle at age four. The opening line of the poem easily describes a person and the second line introduces that the poem isn’t going to be a happy poem, it introduces a sad atmosphere. “I sat all morning in the college sick bay. Counting bells knelling classes to a close.” (Heaney Line 1). He mentions bells, which automatically makes you think of a school bell, but the word “Knell” means the sound of funeral bells. The rhythm and the alteration of these first two lines set a sorrow tone for the rest of the poem. The poet then mentions how he was driven home by his neighbors and not his parents, preparing the reader that there is something wrong that has happened. The poet even remembers the precise time. “two o’ clock” reminiscing on the devastating life changing event. The next stanza’s main focus is his father and how he always takes funerals really well, until his son’s death. The poet explains how his father is crying. Nobody expects a father not to cry, especially as a son who looks up to their father who thinks they are the strongest people in the world. So for the poet to see his own father breaking down on the porch explains how he can’t even be inside and face the truth, it gives us a deep explanation of the emotions and sorrow his whole family was going through. In the 1950’s

A four year old boy stands on the sidewalk with his brothers, unaware of the danger that lies ahead of him. He sees his brothers standing on the other side of the street and darts ahead to them. Suddenly, he is hit by an unsuspecting driver and is killed. This tragic story is the tale of Seamus Heaney’s younger brother Christopher. Seamus Heaney wrote the poem ‘Mid Term Break’ to express his grief over his death.