For the poetry unit, I decided to study the works of the renowned Irish poet, critic, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, Seamus Heaney. I choose Heaney because he is rather contemporary author, most of his works published in the mid to late twentieth century, and his poems were simple yet beautiful. The voice that he uses to spin his tales is fundamentally human. In my opinion, Heaney does not put on fronts of human perfection, but chooses to focus on the simple joys that life provides. This can be seen in many of his poems such as “Lover of Aran”, in which he gives human characteristics to the beach and the sea to exemplify human love and compassion, as well as in “Personal Helicon”, where he harps on the beauty and …show more content…
“Lovers of Aran” lines 4-5 states, “Or did Aran rush/ to throw wide arms of rock around the tide…” The use of personification implies the relationship between the land and the sea, as if they were lovers. In line for of “Docker”, Heaney writes, “Speech is clamped in the lips’ vice.” Personification is use here as a means of characterization, showing the docker is a man of few words. In my piece, I used personification to create the image of the potter, whose hands were “Spitefully burned by kilns too hot and cruelly marked by tools too sharp” (Stanza 1, line 3). I also used personification to draw a reaction of the reader with the line, “…And the sharp whispers from his carving tool…” (Stanza 6, line 20). I wanted the reader to feel the hostility and the malice behind the sharp edge of the tool used to create beautiful artwork.
Another important element to my work was the title. Though the title of the poem may seem simplistic, I followed in Heaney’s footsteps and named my poem after the subject. The Potter of this poem is supposed to represent human intellect; his hands and tools representing words and judgment. The clay represents each individual person. The poem was meant to convey that humans are molded by the words and opinions of others, and are easily scarred and destroyed by negative opinions. Though this theme is darker than the ones Heaney usually conveyed, I believe that the voice that it is told in is largely similar to his works.
Ultimately, this work was
Every time that the potter makes something new, it is like a whole new story that is being unfolded. A characteristic that the speaker gives the potter is magical. In the text it says, ¨For it was magical to me.¨ That tells the reader that every move that the potter made was magical, and fascinating. Not just what he made was magical, but how he made it. Another characteristic that the speaker gives the potter is magnificent. Throughout the poem the potter does many different magnificent thing. For example, ¨...and even the slightest touch obey.¨ This shows the reader that every move that the potter makes the clay follows his hand
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,
Heaney and Raffel’s translations are both phenomenal works of literature. Heaney, however, concentrates more on how poetic and similar the
Personification is a great way to make the story very lively and exciting. One example of personification, the muttering and growling of the sea breaking on a rocky shore (Connell 19), is a great representation of this device because it adds a mysterious and human-like quality to the sound. That’s what the author was trying to accomplish; a mysterious feeling. Connell effectively used personification because when reading that, it made the sea breaking on the shore seem alive
Personification is used to show what nonhuman objects or things are doing. Connell uses it to tell his readers what a boat’s wake is really representing. He writes, “...the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face” (Connell 19). He wanted to portray that Rainsford was not able to speak or shout at the boat to get anyone's attention.
The poems ‘Limbo’ and ‘Bye Child’ by Seamus Heaney are poems that evoke the casualties of sexual and emotional repression in Ireland, as well as and the oppression of both women and un baptized children, in a time where religion was most prominent and people were confined to the guidelines of the church and it’s community, as it was the ruling power. Both poems present this idea through the use of a child, representative of innocence and vulnerability. Through his poetry, Heaney gives a voice to those who have been silenced by society. Heaney manages to create this extended voice and
Question 2 Two lines that are examples of personification in the poem potsu-potsu by Lily Roland are ‘heralding the dashing downpour’ and the groaning bridge struggles to stand tall and strong’. This is used in the first line where it says heralding and dashing as rain dose not dash and thunder dose not herald. In the second line it can be seen when it says groaning bridge as a bridge dose not groan. The use of personification
For instance, “Those boats are restless” (Woodford). This is a use of personification because boats cannot be restless. Another example of personification is “...someday I will let my ships taste freedom” (Woodford). In the short story, Uncle Timothy says that he wants his ships to “taste freedom”. This use of personification is trying to say that the ships are always tied up and not used.
William Butler Yeats is one of the most esteemed poets in 20th century literature and is well known for his Irish poetry. While Yeats was born in Ireland, he spent most of his adolescent years in London with his family. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he later moved back to Ireland. He attended the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and joined the Theosophical Society soon after moving back. He was surrounded by Irish influences most of his life, but it was his commitment to those influences and his heritage that truly affected his poetry. William Butler Yeats’s poetry exemplifies how an author’s Irish identity can help create and influence his work.
Like a shovel to dirt as a pen to paper. In “Digging,” Seamus Heaney uses specific elements such as diction, and imagery to convey his meaning that children don’t always want to be like their past generations of men.
because he is so much smaller than his father, but he also looks up to
Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.
Seamus Heaney and Thomas Hardy both depict images of rural life as difficult and uncomfortable. In their poems ‘At a Potato Digging’ and ‘A Sheep Fair’ they describe different aspects of rural life; these were elements of life that would have been familiar to the poets and ones that they would have experienced. In their poetry Heaney and Hardy
There is plenty of figurative language in this poem, which adds to the poem’s richness. There are several metaphors: “loaded gun” (which I think is a metaphor for life), “Vesuvian face” (volcano), and “Yellow eye” (which I am not sure about), “Yellow Eye” and “emphatic Thumb,” which stand for some kind of weapon. Personification is
How much does an artist’s life affect the art they produce? One’s art certainly can be an expression of one’s surroundings and in this manner the surroundings are woven like a thread into their body of work. Seamus Heaney, born and raised in Northern Ireland, has grown up with many strong influences in his life that are visible in his poetry. As Robert Buttel claims in his article on Seamus Heaney “the imprint of this poet’s origins is indelibly fixed in his work” (180). Living in the “bogland” as Heaney has described Northern Ireland left an imprint on his poems, as he often depicts the lush green countryside and pastoral scenes of his youth. However, he also acknowledges his modern society.