All three poems manage to display how as children they were exploring the natural world around them, Heaney exploring the "Frogspawn" and both Sheers and Heaney picking "blackberries" which are seen as childhood experiences. This exploration seemed to lead to them all finding something "dark" inside them as they begin to mature. In "DoaN" Heaney uses war like imagery such as "cocked" and "mud grenades", this may allude to the civil war in Ireland at the time as Heaney begins to see the world isn't as simple as "Miss Walls" would tell him. He is beginning to see that procreation does not happen because a partner "croaked" and in "BP" we see further how his innocence is being lost and he is learning about sexuality in the nouns "lust" and "hunger. They manage to illustrate how Heaney is developing a desire for sex which conflicts with his original childish adventures and shows the developing confusion he went through as he grew older.
The poems ‘The Barn’ by Seamus Heaney and ‘Like Dolmens Round my Childhood’ by John Montague both explore a similar theme, childhood memories. The two poems are about the poets own childhood experiences and how as they grow older they view the events differently compared to when they were a child. The poem ‘The Barn’ is from Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s poetry anthology ‘Death of a Naturalist, 1966’ in which Heaney wrote many poems about his childhood experiences. The poem describes a barn, what it looks and smells like, and how when Heaney as a child was so terrified when entering it that this fear was realised in his dreams. On the other hand, the poem ‘Like Dolmens Round my Childhood’ is from John Montague’s anthology ‘The Rough Field, 1972’ which was written at the beginning of The Troubles.
The poems are about Heaney’s childhood, in his poems he explains the change of attitude to the natural world, and the poems both have two parts: the childhood and his views as an adult. His poems describe his experience as a child. The reader knows that Heaney is describing his childhood in “Blackberry Picking” because in his poem he shows a vivid account of picking blackberries which shows us that it can only be done by child. A quotation to prove this is “I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair”.
His growing interest in individuality eventually expands into literature where he expresses his stances on the subjects. Even his style can be drawn to the idea of secluding himself, but he wants others to read his works as he did and make their own conclusions about them. Essentially he creates a cycle in which all life is centered upon, romantic literature. The life of William Blake, his inquisitive nature, and the substance of the poem “The Tyger” all influence his poetry. The influences in Blake’s life are all rooted around his childhood, which he used to focus on his thoughts about religion and family.
For part of our GCSE coursework we have been asked to write an essay comparing and analyzing two poems, “Death of a Naturalist” by Seamus Heaney and “In Mrs.Tilcher’s Class” by Carol Ann Duffy. Both of these poems deal with the aspect of growing up and losing your childhood innocence. Seamus Heaney was born in April 1939, the eldest in a family of nine at the family farmhouse called Mossbawn, between Castledawson and Toomebridge in Northern Ireland. His father, Patrick Heaney, owned and worked a small farm of fifty acres in County Derry, but his real commitment was to cattle-dealing with his brother, Heaney’s uncle. Heaney had a rural upbringing and grew up as a country boy.
From his interview, we know that Ernest Gaines grew up on a plantation, like Grant. Gaines’ description of his childhood fits with Grant’s past, which shows how the author took bits of his own life and applied them to his book. Having background information that came from his own life gave his story accuracy that would not have existed had he been raised in a different place or time. Gaines also grew up working in the fields, which he applied to the lives of most of the characters in his story as well. He also went to a church school as a child, which is where Grant teaches and where Jefferson used to attend.
Include information you know or can get from asking your family. • Place of birth for you, for your parents and/or grandparents • Places lived – you, your parents, and/or grandparents • Schools attended – you, your parents, grandparents • Significant adults or people in your life • Dreams of your parents and/or dreams for yourself • Challenges of your parents and/or challenges for yourself “Europe and America” 6. Read the poem. Highlight images in the poem that show the contrast between the experiences of the father and son. Write a few sentences below summarizing the similarities and differences of their experiences.
The use of diction in “The Chimney Sweeper” helps in understanding the poem. Blake expresses his poem as a young chimney sweeper. This gives his poetic voice creditability because the subject of the poem is chimney sweepers. Using first person creates a deeper sense of sympathy in the reader. The young boy, the poetic voice, lost his mother while he was very young.
I will explain my views by referring to a range of evidence. This will include some of his performances and poems such as “white comedy“, “touch” and responsible and interviews written about him. I will particularly consider his childhood, performance style, lifestyle, achievements and use of word lyrics. Firstly I would like to tell you about Benjamin Zephaniahs childhood because in the interview by the Observer it tells us that he had an extraordinary childhood due to him being the eldest of eight children and how he runaway with his mother because his father was a bad man and how he went to prison and got expelled from school due to stealing and theft. He says “when my father was turning on my mother, he was also turning on me because I would stick up for my mother while the rest of my brother and sisters would be hiding in the cupboards.” the point I am trying to make here is that after such a harsh and miserable childhood he has still made an amazing and successful career and life.
After this, Heaney lived in Belfast between 1957 and 1972 and then moved south to Dublin, where he currently lives with his wife and 3 children. Seamus Heaney’s poetry first became noticed in the mid-1960’s. In the poem ‘Death of a Naturalist’, the author develops the voice of an adult speaker looking back on his childhood, demonstrating how, as a young boy, his perception of the same environment saddened matured and altered, essentially providing a new way of looking at the dramatic change between childhood and adulthood, and displaying how over time, peoples interpretation of their surroundings and of society around them will inevitably change and develop. To highlight this development, Heaney establishes a definite structure, exposing the two different interpretations, and uses repetitively distinct and descriptive diction to expose the crucial development of the character in a constant setting, revealing the main themes of the poem. The structure of the poem is suited to its purpose- to consider the drive behind two different approaches to the same situation; growing up.