Seamus Heaney :: Writers Poets Poetry Essays

Seamus HeaneySeamus Heaney was born in April 1939 in Northern Ireland. His fatherowned and worked fifty acres of farmland in County Derry in N.I.Patrick Heaney had always been act to cattle-dealing. Seamusparents died quite early in his life and so his uncle had to take careof him from then on. Heaney grew up as a country boy and attended the topical anaesthetic primary school. When he was twelve he won a scholarship to St.Columbs College, a catholic boarding school situated in the metropolis ofDerry. Heaney moved to Belfast later in his life where he lived forfifteen years and then moved to the republic. Since 1982 he madeannual visits to America to school and since then he started writinghis poems. Heaneys first poem was called Digging.The aims of this essay are to compare twain of Seamus Heaneyss poemswhich deal with the theme of childhood. The two poems are called TheEarly Purges and Mid-Term Break.The relevance of the title The Early Purges is that it informs us or so what ha ppens during the poem and it tells us what the subject ofthe poem is. The poem goes straight into what it is about and it isbased the death of animals on a farm and is subjected to two peoplesopinions over the killing of the animals. The poem is very ambiguousand ironic with a gory tone to it because of its in depth descriptionof the death.The poem has seven three line stanzas called tercets, and each lineholds five to ten words retentiveness the poem easy to read throughout.Heaney has chosen to use this stanza structure and line length becauseit builds up tension and keeps you in suspense. It is also easier todigest in subtle stanzas and I think he has done this for us to get thefull effect of the poem. There is a rhyme scheme in the poem scarce issplit into para-rhymes because it gives a flow to the poem and graspsthe readers attention all the way through.Seamus Heaney uses lots of imagery in this poem to get the reader toreally view how the animals were treated on the farm. H eaneymentions a line that Dan Taggart had said on the farm. Like wetGloves Dan had thought they looked like wet gloves when they werebeing drowned. Also while Heaney had watched the kittens drown, hesaid that he had watched them Turn mealy and crisp as old summerdung. As you can see, again how Heaney exaggerates on the killing of