Using assonance.
In Death of a Naturalist Heaney experiments with a variety of formal rhyme schemes. Beyond these end-of-line rhymes he also indulges in internal echo.
The poet places a rich variety of assonances in ostensibly random but in fact quite deliberate order, now juxtaposed, now separated by other figures. He is seeking to compose perfectly tuned phrases and wants his developing skill of playing with musicality of language and word order to generate beautifully turned passages. His thought processes and instinctive use of rhythm seem to go hand in hand, whether in phrases of bare simplicity or more complex ideas and emotions.
The English language with its complex spelling system offers assonant effects by creating words that sound remarkably similar even though their spelling is radically different: e.g. wood/ would
Equally, offering no assonant effect, some words with similar spelling sound very different: ought/ though/ through/ cough.
Using alliteration.
Consonants differ according to where in the mouth they are formed: between the lips [p] [b] ; behind the teeth [t] [d]; velar or alveolar [[dʒ][k]. Some, identically produced, are voiced [b], some are voiceless [p]. Some ‘plode’ in a single sound, others can be continuous, floating on air being exhaled [s] [w], some are nasal [m], [n], [ŋ] (as in ‘ring’) some involve friction [f], others are frictionless [w].
The poem can benefit from all of these ‘musical’ alternatives and Heaney knows it! He sprinkles his composition with alliterated consonants judged best suited to mood or melody. No poem is bereft of this technique, some are loaded; they may feature an interweave of sounds made in the same area of the mouth [s] [sh] [k] [tʃ] [dʒ] such that the resonance echoes and re-echoes.
Heaney’s alliterations arrive in pairs or larger groupings. Alliteration and assonance can be used in tandem to create a different effect: The permutations are endless and Heaney rings the changes as each individual poem reveals on close examination.
Alliterations – Assonances – mixed chains
Digging
- Alliteration: provides groups of consonant sounds: sibilant [s] and [ʃ]: squat/ snug/ rests/ sung and later nestled/ shaft/ against/ inside; voiced alveolar [g] of gravelly ground/ digging; its voiceless companion alveolar [k] in curt cuts; finally the aspirant [h] of hardness hands;
- assonance added: smell/ squelch;
- Further examples of assonance: [æ] rasping/ gravelly; (ʌ)thumb/ smug/ gun under; rump/ among/ comes/ up;( i
neatly/ heaving;( əʊ ) potato/ mould;
Death of an Naturalist
- alliterations in pairs or sets: voiceless labio-dental [f] in flax/ festered; sibilant [s] in sods/ sweltered/ punishing/ sun/ sound smell/ slobbered/frogspawn/ loose/ pulsed/ snails/ gross/ frogs/ sods; inter-labial [w] wait/ watch; voiced alveolar [dʒ] jampots/ jellied; voiceless velar plosive [k] coarse croaking;
- assonant effects: [e] heavy/ headed; [ɒ] watch/ dots;[ɪ]) nimble/ swimming; [ɒ] one/ hot; [æ] rank/ angry/ flaxdam; [ɒ] frogs/ cocked/ sods;
The Barn
- Alliterative effects: strong in sibilants (solid as cement/ sacks)adding a ‘hissing’ background to the growing fear; velar [k] cobwebs/ clogging suggests voice constricted by anxiety; lack of oxygen adds to a sense of claustrophobia and ultimately panic;
- weave of [t] and [b] sounds: into/ nights/ bats/ rafters/ bright;
- assonance: [ɔː] hoarded/ armoury ; [ ʌ] up/ lungs/ scuttled/ sunlit;
An Advancement of Learning
- alliterations: voiced alveolar [d] of considered/ dirty-keeled swans; voiceless velar plosive [k] of curtly, close; sibilant [s] and voiceless alveolar [t] alone or in tandem: something/ smudging/ silence/ trained/ stared out/ forgetting;
Blackberry Picking
- Alliteration based on velar plosive [k]: trekked/ picked/ cans/ tinkling/ covered; bilabial plosive [b]: big blobs/ burned/ berries in the byre;
- Sonic echoes: [ʌ] sun/ ripen ; sun/ just/ one; [ɒ] glossy clot; [ʌ] summer/ blood; lust/ hunger and so on;
- Consonant and vowel sounds in tandem: fur/ fungus/ glutting;
Churning Day
- Multiple alliterative chains : velar plosive [k]: thick/ crust/ coarse; crocks; a triplet of voiced velar [d]: daintily seasoned wood; sibilants [s[ & [ʃ]]: soft/ slabs/ shelves; short/ stroke/ suddenly; in pairs: finally flecks;
- Sonic chains of varying lengths: (fours) [ʌ] scrubber/ wood/ stood/ purified; [ɪ] fished/ dripping/ in/ tin; (threes) [ʌ] mother/ slugged/ bumped; [ai] while/ inside/ sterile; [ɜː]earthenware/ churning/ churn;(pairs) [ʌ] cud/ udder; muddler/ plunged; [ei] ranged/ again; [i:] clean/ deal;
The Early Purges
- Alliteration: velar plosive[t] and sibilants [s/ [ʃ] in tandem: pitched/scraggy/ shits; sibilant [s] in number: soft paws/ scraping/ soused/ slung/ snout;
- Assonant effects: [ʌ] pump/ pumped; [ɒ] bobbed and shone; bobbed/ sogged; [ʌ] tugged/ pulled;
Follower
- Internal echoes: [əʊ] shoulders/ globed/ follow/ shadow; [ɒ] sock/ sod/; [æ] narrowed and angled at/ Mapping;; [ɪ] wing/ fit;
Ancestral Photograph
- Alliteration: aspirate [h]heckled and herded; voiceless velar [k] crowd of cattlemen;
- Sonic echoes: [ʌ] upper/ bullies; [ɪ] drinks/ clinch; [æ] hat pushed back/ smack/ Hands;[e] heckled and herded;
Mid-Term Break
- and alliteration: [k] classes/ close/ clock; cooed/ rocked/ came; strong presence of sibilant [s]: in line with the solemnity of proceedings: whispers/ strangers/ tearless/ sighs; or decency: corpse stanched; or peaceful repose: snowdrops/ candles/ soothed/ bedside;
- assonant effects: [e] bells knelling; [əʊ] close/ drove/ home/ blow; [ai] crying/stride; [ai] + [au] coughed/ out;
Dawnshoot
- Alliteration: [t] stones clicked tartly (also onomatopoeic association of sound and taste; [k] corncrake/ unexpectedly/ rocketed/ reconnaissance; [b] rubber-booted/ belted; [s] ravenous eye/ used/ greyness/ settle, soon;
- Assonant effects: [ei] daybreak/ grey; [ʌ] funneling/ rumps; [ai] climbed/ iron; [ɪ] whinnied/ shivered;
At a Potato Digging
- 1. Rich use of alliteration: {k} like/ crows/ attacking/ crow-black; [h] higgledy/ hedge/ headland; [k] breaking/ rugged/ ranks; [s] straighten/ stand/ stumble/ recurs/ mindlessly/ as /centuries/ seasonal sod;
- Land and sea fuse in the assonant [ʌ] crumbled surf; modernity alongside human frailty: [ɪ] mechanical/ digger/ drill; [ʌ] stumble/ crumble/ trunks/ fumble;
- 2. alliteration and assonance run hand in hand: vowels [ai] [ɪ] and consonant [p] Flint-white/ purple/ lie/ like inflated pebbles/ Native; [u] and [ʌ] exudes/ humus/ erupts/ crumbled;
- assonance: [ɒ] shot/ clotted; [ɪ] slit-eyed/ drills/ split;
- 3. Heaney provides streams of sonic echo: [ai] live/ blind-eyed/ wild/ blighted died, [ei] lain/ days/ clay; [ɪ] million/ wicker/famine/ snipped; [au] sounds/ fouled/ mounds; [ʌ] hungering/ grubbing;
- 4. Alliteration: [b] brown/ bread/ bright;[d] dead-beat/ down/ ditch;
- assonance: [ɪ] ditch/ fill; [æ] thankfully/thanks/ scatter
For the Commander of the Eliza
- Alliteration: voiceless velar plosive [k] creek/ tacked/ crew/ stroke; voiced and voiceless sibilants [s] and [z] in tandem: rising/ capsize/ themselves/ sent; labio-dentals [f] and [v]free relief for famine victims;
- Heaney peppers his narrative with assonant echoes and effects: [ei] hailed/ Gaelic; [ɪ] spring/ drills ;[ɔː] shortage/ board; port/ exorcised/ reporting/ all; [ʌ] skulls/ bunks; [i:] relieve/ relief;
The Diviner
- Alliterative presence of sibilants [s], [ʃ]: circling/ unfussed/ nervous/ professionally; : precise convulsions … sharp as a sting … Spring water suddenly … secret stations;
- Assonant echo chains: [ʌ] cut/ hunting/ pluck/ nervously/ unfussed/ pluck/ convulsions; [ɪ] it/ till/ gripped/ wrists; [ai] bystanders/ try;
Turkeys Observed
- Alliterative effects: voiceless labio-dental [f[ frills of feather …claw-flecked … flick
- Persistent consonant echoes: bi-labial plosive [b] observes/ blue-breasted/ beached/ bare/ marble/ slabs; sibilant [s] and [z]: sides/ some/ smelly/ majesty/ pass/ Christmas dazzle;
- Assonant echoes: persistent use of [ʌ]: slung/ hook/ blood/ pull/ pluck/ look/ just another; [ʊə] poor/ forked/ lorded/ claw;
- Vowel and consonant sounds in tandem: indifferent mortuary/ immodest/ frills of feather; skin/ plumped/ inky/ putty;
Cow in Calf
- Mainly paired alliterations: cow/ calf; barrel/ belly; slapping/ seed; hit heard;
- Assonance occurs mainly in pairs: foreleg/ haunches; slung/ hammock; again/ again; charge/ far; drone/ lowing; one triplet: plump/ gut/ udder;
Trout
- Assonant pairs: trout/ throat; bridges/ slips; unravels/ gravel; stones/ cold; triplets: gun/ under/ butter; plums/ muzzle/ bull’s eye;
Waterfall
- Heaney rings the changes of vowel and consonant chains, separate or in tandem: My eye rides; drowns/ down; up/ suds/ simultaneous/ sudden; through/ this/ throat; tumult/ thus/ standing/ still; slabber and spill;
Docker
- alliteration: plated/ speech/ clamped; pint of porter; Celtic/ cross/ clearly; sits/ strong;
- assonant effects: life in shifts; collar/ tolerates; tonight/ quiet; imperatives/ rivets;
Poor Women in a City Church
- Alliterative and assonant effect are generally in pairs: sacred place/ wax candles; asterisks/ candlesticks; shawls/ drawn; old dough…;beeswax brows;
Gravities
- Minor alliteration: heading/ home; Connell/ Colmcille;
- Assonant effects: [ai] high/ riding/kites/ quire; [ei] range/ reined; endure; [e] declare/ re-enter/ wearing/ next; [ɪ] strings/ strict/ invisible/ instinctively; [ʌ] suddenly/ faithful;[ɒ] lovers/ hot/ often/ off; shops/ Connell; [i:] Paris [par’ee]/ party/ piece/ Colmcille;
Twice Shy
- Alliterated phrases: [k] classic decorum; crossed/ quiet; excited/ linked/ hawk; [t] regret it all too late;
- Assonant effects, pairs: [eə] air/ friendly; [ai] sky/ diaphragm; [ɒ] swan/ swam; [ə] decorum/ deployed; and triplets: [ʌ]dusk/ hung/ shook; mushroom/ puffed/ burst;
Valediction
- Sonic chains are less frequent in a poem that has an extended metaphor at its base: [ʌ] buck and bound/ unmoored; [ɒ] rocked/ love’s;
Lovers on Aran
- Assonant effects: [ai] timeless/ bright; wide/ tide/ define; [ɪ] sifting/ glinting/ sifting/ did; [u] drew/ new; [i:] each/ meaning; yielded/ sea/ sea;
Poem
- Use of alliteration: voiceless bi-labial plosive [p] perfect/ potters/ piled/ puddling interwoven with alveolar plosives [d] and [t] that are produced in the same area of the mouth); sibilant [s] sucking/ splash; [d] delightedly/ dam/ drain;
- Assonant effects: [ʌ] puddling/ muck; mush/ autumn [ɪ] strip/ build; [æ] dam/ bastions;
Honeymoon Flight
- Alliteration: force of fire;
- Rich and varied assonant effects: [ɜː] -work/earth/ -turvy/ further/ world; [e] hems of hedge; [ei] grey tapes;-scape/ change; [au] out/ our; [ɪ] slips/ wing-tip; [æ] hang, miraculous, above; [ʌ]us/ us/; [ai] sky/geyser;
Scaffolding
- A chain of sibilant sounds from the title onwards culminates in sure and solid stone; alliteration: bridges/ breaking between; sometimes seem;
Storm on the Island
- alliteration: rock and roof; stacks Or stooks … spits like a tame cat/ Turned;
- Heaney uses ingenious poetic ploys to describe the sounds of threatening turbulence: the varying power of the elements is rendered not by precise assonance but by use of grouped allophonic (variant) sounds the same vowel: [o] stooks/ lost/ proper/ company/ blows/ know/ exploding comfortably down/ on/ no; [i] hits/ spits/ sit tight while wind dives/ invisibly; [a] space/ salvo/ are/ bombarded/ air;
- Similar practice groups adjacent consonant sound [t], [θ] and [ð]: listen to the thing/ Forgetting that it/ there/ trees/ natural shelter;
Synge on Aran
- the hissing sibilants [s] of the first couplet are followed by the plosive [p] of peel/ pare; [sk] sculpting/ scowl;
- vowel echoes are sometimes juxtaposed, sometimes distant: [[i:] sea/ peel; keening sea; [ɒ] locked rock; [ɪ] shrivelled/ chiselled/ cliff ; nib/ dipped;[au] scowl/ mouth/ drownings;
Saint Francis and the Birds
- Sound effects in pairs: [t] fluttered/ throttled; [i:]wheeled/ whirred; [p] pirouetted/ capes; extended: His argument true, his tone light;
In Small Townlands
- Alliterative pairings: his hogshair; clay/ crystal; outcrops/ contract; spectrum bursts; clean/ cruel; bare/ bald; black/ brilliant ;
- Assonant groupings: [ɪ] split/ granite; [əʊ] loaded/ honed; [au] mountain/ outcrop/ outstared; [ei] grenade/ safety;
- In combination: [ s],[ɪ], [ai] splintered lights slice like a spade/ strip; extended vowel sound:[ɪ] his/ thick/ this/ incinerate it till it’s / brilliant;
The Folk Singers
- Paired alliterations: shy/ shell/ pre-packed;
- Assonant effects: [uː] new/ grooved; [ɪ] slick strings/ swing/ equilibrium; [ʌ] country love/ strung/ rustic/ humming/ blunts/ strumming [e] Death’s edge;
The Play Way
- Alliteration: [s] silence/ sweetness/ lost faces/ see/ looks; [m] mixing memory
- Assonant effects: [æ] Play Way; [ɪ] pillars/ milk/ drinking; [ai] Sunlight/ strides/ desire/ behind eyes/ wide; [ʌ] pumps/ up/ blundering;
- Interwoven chain effects: [ð] [s] [t] Then notes stretch taut as snares / trip;
Personal Helicon
- rich in assonant effects: [ʌ] pumps/ buckets; fungus/ bucket plummeted; [ɒ] drop/ moss; hovered/ bottom; [əʊ] rope/ so/ no; [ɪ]in/ brickyard/ rich; big-eyed Narcissus/ inyo/ spring/ is/ dignity; [u] new/ music; [eə] scaresome/ there; [ai] rhyme/ myself;
- interweave of [ɪ] [æ]: dry ditch fructified like/ aquarium; same combination of sounds [ɪ] [æ] creates a chiasmic effect: pry into/ finger slime;
Standard English sounds and their phonetic symbols as used in footnotes above:
Vowels
[ɪ] pit/ did
[e] press/ bed/ said
[æ] clap/ bad
[ɒ] tot /odd
[ʌ] cut/ love / must
[ʊ] foot /good/ pull
[i:] fleece/ please
[ei] face/ cake/ break
[ai] price/ try/ trial
[ɔɪ] voice/ toy
[uː] loose/ lose/ two
[əʊ] moat/ show
[au] south /now
[ɪə] hear/ here
[eə] square/ pair
[ɑː] start/ rather
[ɔː] bought/ law
[ʊə] poor /jury
[ɜː] curse / flirt
[ə] about common
[i] happy radiate
[u] you situation
Consonants
and where they are formed in the mouth
[p] voiceless bi-labial plosive
[b] voiced bi-labial plosive
[t] voiceless alveolar plosive
[d] voiced alveolar plosive
[k] voiceless velar plosive
[g] voiced velar plosive
[tʃ] voiceless alveolar fricative as in church match
[dʒ] voiced alveolar fricative as in judge age
[f] voiceless labio-dental fricative
[v] voiced labio-dental fricative
[θ] voiceless dental fricative as in thin path
[ð] voiced dental fricative as in this other
[s] voiceless alveolar fricative
[z] voiced alveolar fricative
[ʃ]voiceless post-alveolar fricative as in ship sure
[ʒ] voiced post- alveolar fricative as in pleasure
[h] continuant
[m] bi-labial nasal
[n] alveolar nasal
[ŋ] palatal nasal as in ring/ anger
[l] alveolar approximant
[r] alveolar trill
[j] dental ‘y’ as in yet
Note: regional/ dialectal variations, e.g.Ulster would produce non-standard- English vowel sounds but would retain that ‘local’ variation in all words covered by the same phonetic symbol.
Experimenting with form and rhyme:
Scrutiny reveals the variety of formal challenges the poet sets himself in his pursuit of excellence.
Digging
- 9 stanzas of varying length from 2 to 5 lines (31 lines in total);
- Lines grouped largely around 10 syllables; some stanzas end in shorter lines that break the rhythm or permit thoughtful pauses or add emphasis; starting with a 5-line rhyme pattern aa bbb the poem returns to free verse;
Death of an Naturalist
- The poem is divided into 2 extensive sections of unrhymed verse; lines largely based on 10 syllables with a single exception; their arrangement as sentences with enjambed lines offers ways of delivering emphasis and pace to the text; there is no formal rhyme scheme;
The Barn
- Twenty lines divided into 5-quatrains; a loose scheme abab/ cdcd of ‘approximate’ rhymes;
- Eleven sentences of varying length accompany the poetic eye as it flits around;
An Advancement of Learning
- a 9 quatrain poem of largely octosyllabic lines; the rhyme scheme follows no strict pattern: now abab, now cdcd, now on even lines, now a middle couplet (v5), now odd lines;
Blackberry Picking
- 24 10-syllable lines arranged 16/8: frequent full-stops and commas provide a staccato effect;
- there is a recognisable rhyme scheme sometimes tight, sometimes approximate;
Churning Day
- 36 lines of poetry in 3 sub-divisions; free verse;
The Early Purges
- 7 triplets of largely 10-syllable lines; a rhyme pattern is based on 1st and 3rd lines of each stanza;
Follower
- 6 quatrains in each of which one of alternate lines rhymes; largely 8 syllable lines; the shortes line ist indefinite article + noun), the use of punctuation and enjambed lines define the ebb and flow of oral delivery;
Ancestral Photograph
- 5 sextets based around 10-syllable lines;
- up to a dozen sentences. In the longest of these, four consecutive enjambed lines (that mimic the constant flow of a person who has the ‘gift of the gab’) are replaced by a series of commas punctuating the various tests used by buyers to judge the quality of a beast prior to bidding;
Mid-Term Break
- poem is constructed in 7 10-syllable tercets plus a final maximum-impact line; there is no formal rhyme scheme;
Dawnshoot
- The longest poem in the collection in 4 stanzas of variable length; lines of varying length, the shortest of merely 3 syllables; no rhyme scheme;
At a Potato Digging
- 1. 4 quatrains of based around 10 syllable lines, formal rhyme scheme abab cdcd;
- 2. Sonnet form in two equal stanzas; lines based upon 7 and 8 syllables; sentence lengths are initially short; punctuation breaks up the flow. In contrast, the penultimate sentence leading to the Armageddon-like foreboding of the final line is enjambed; a partial rhyme scheme once developed persists to the end;
- 3. this exceptionally bleak poem is of twenty lines in 5 quatrains with a recognisable abab cdcd rhyme scheme; the 2 single-line sentences provide further emphasis;
- 4. 2 quatrains of broadly 8 syllable lines; rhyme scheme abab cdcd;
For the Commander of the Eliza
- 36 mostly 10 syllable lines in a single stanza; largely complex sentences with enjambed lines;
The Diviner
- The 12 mainly 10-syllable lines grouped in 3 quatrains; the variably placed caesura (literally ‘cutting’, i.e. the natural break-point point between phrases) offers varied dynamics; recognisable scheme of loose rhymes abab/ cdcd etc;
Turkeys Observed
- 5 quatrains; lines of different length between 7 and 10 syllables with subsequent variations in rhythm and emphasis; free verse;
Cow in Calf
- Sonnet form, split 3:6:5; no rhyme scheme save in the final 3 lines lowing/ going;
Trout
- 17 lines split into 4 quatrains of mainly 6 syllables lines plus a final line; no rhyme scheme;
Waterfall
- 4 triplets of mainly 10 syllable lines; a single rhyme in the final couplet;
Docker
- 4 quatrains of mainly 10 syllable lines without a formal rhyme scheme; the single 7-syllable line stresses the silent, repressed anger:
Poor Women in a City Church
- 15 lines of mainly 8 syllables in 3 stanzas;
- Heaney works through the challenges and restrictions of a sophisticated rhyme scheme aabab, ccdcd etc
Gravities
- 12 lines of 10 syllables; rhyme scheme abab cdcd;
Twice Shy
- Heaney rings the changes of poetic form: here he chooses a 6-sextet format made up largely of hexameters with rhymes on the even lines and free verse on the odd; this creates a different music to the ear;
Valediction
- The poem bears the hallmarks of a ‘lay’, a short lyrical song;
- 16 hexameters in a single stanza; rhyme scheme abab cdcd etc;
Lovers on Aran
- 3 triplets; 10 syllable lines that rhyme on the odd line axa byb czc; ‘a little gem’ of composition;
Poem
- 16 ten-syllable lines in 4 quatrains; a loose rhyme scheme abab cdcd etc;
Honeymoon Flight
- 16 lines based on 10 syllable lines; 4 quatrains; a loose rhyme scheme abab cdcd etc;
Scaffolding
- 4 rhyming couplets based on 10 syllable lines; rhyme scheme aa bb etc.;
Storm on the Island
- 19 ten-syllable lines in a single stanza; loose rhyme is confined to first and last couplets;
Synge on Aran
- 16 lines between 5 and 7 syllables in stanzas joined by half lines; varied rhythms from the use of enjambed lines and full-stops in mid line; no formal rhyme scheme (one couplet only);
Saint Francis and the Birds
- Three triplets and a single line; based on 8 syllables; a further variation in rhyme scheme: the odd lines of each triplet (axa byb); the final couplets twinned dede;
In Small Townlands
- 3 sextets of 8 syllable lines; a further rhyme scheme variation abcabc defdef;
The Folk Singers
- 3 five-line stanzas based around 6 and 7 syllables; free verse save Humming/ strumming in the final three lines;
The Play Way
- Five quatrains variously 8 or 10 syllables; combination of punctuation, (some of it mid-line) and
enjambment provides for the rhythmic ebb and flow of oral delivery;
- The rhyme scheme affects the even lines of each quatrain; odd lines are free;
Personal Helicon
- six quatrains based around 10-syllable lines; rhyme scheme abab cdcd etc., some assonant, others approximates.
Subjects and settings
Digging
Subjects: a poet’s mission statement; his father; the man he was and the old man he has become; the sort of men Heaney admires; the family’s traditional line of business that he has declined to follow in order to become a poet; autobiographical element;
The setting: the rural neighbourhood within which he was brought up;
Death of an Naturalist
Subject: a boy growing up; the man reflecting upon his childhood; a youngster blessed with a vivid imagination; close observation of the natural environment around him woven into a nightmare sequence; early enthusiasm for nature; autobiographical element;
Setting: his Irish townland and the boggy area immediately surrounding his home;
The Barn
Subject: a second ‘bad-dream’ poem about the tribulations of a sensitive youngster; autobiographical element;
Setting: a typical Ulster farm building familiar to Heaney;
An Advancement of Learning
Subject: a naturally timid person takes a step towards successful independence; a phobia overcome; the perceived behaviour of amphibians described from close observation; autobiographical element;
Setting: a flax-dam from his rural surroundings..
Blackberry-Picking
Subjects: a pleasure event from childhood; a shared family activity; autobiographical element;
A home-farm setting that enables Heaney to show-case his talent for transposing close observation and associated emotion into words.
Churning Day
Subjects: a rural farming activity from the poet’s youth; family participation; self-sufficiency; autobiographical element;
Setting: the scullery of his Ulster home in which a process akin to alchemy takes place: producing butter from milk!
The Early Purges
Subjects: the unsavoury but essential realities of farming life; a named individual’s rôle in disposing of unwanted animals; the contrast between rural and city values; acceptance of ethical compromises brought about by maturity; access to and ability to describe sense data generated in the farmyard; autobiographical element;
Setting: the Ulster farming environment;
Follower
Subjects: father/son relationship; Heaney’s respect and love for his father; his own place in the family line; paternal skills that set an example to follow; changes in life-ambitions; the ageing process; the calendar of Irish rural life;
Setting: father and son in their environment;
Ancestral Photograph
Subjects based round the wheeling and dealing of Ulster cattle markets over 3 generations: a family working together and learning from each other; a great-uncle described from his portrait; his brother who is Heaney’s father; the poet’s involvement with his own father when he was young; lamented changes in rural practices; family icons; touching appreciation of what is nostalgically important;
Settings: actual places around the family home; vivid memories of rural activity;
Mid-Term Break
A life-changing event: his younger brother’s death (as result of a car accident in February 1953). The poem succeeds very movingly in meshing different themes: the unsettling effect of changes to routine; the sense of finality that hits the speaker only slowly; the silence and solemnity of the Irish Catholic pre-funeral process itself; how grief affects people differently; introduction to community responses to wakes; an indication as to the way in which Heaney’s nature deals with his own emotion;
Setting: his Secondary school routines; the family home; his brother’s room;
Dawnshoot
Subjects: humorous presentation of an adolescent hunting exercise; laddish values and priorities; an extended para-military metaphor; the behaviour of country animals;
Setting: a local landscape/ film-set in which a burlesque drama is played out;
At a Potato Digging
Subjects: Knowledge of Irish history and the misfortunes visited upon the Irish people,
specifically the Irish famine disasters around 1845; ‘pagan’ dependency on the potato; descriptions of starvation; his own sharing of the smells and sensations of the earth’s bounty; fundamentally little-changed but happier present-day circumstances;
Settings: Ireland; the harvested ground and nature surrounding it are the unifying factors; juxtaposition of ancient and modern methods;
For the Commander of the Eliza
Subjects: historical Irish suffering at the hands of the British government in Whitehall, London;
reasons why a burning sense of injustice might continue to exist within the Irish psyche over 120 years later; human survival instincts; reworking of one’s moral code to justify an injustice;
Setting: off the Irish coast (with little local colour); on board two boats;
The Diviner
Subject: an example of a rural skill that to those looking on verges on the miraculous; how people gawp at the unusual;
An Irish country setting;
Turkeys Observed
Subjects: displays of regulation Christmas fare set up a chain of associations; the unconsidered aspect of traditional Christmas fare: Heaney laments the sorry sight of turkeys slaughtered in cold blood for Man’s self-indulgence;
The sight of shop-windows awakens vivid thoughts of farm yard and the animal pecking-order within it;
Cow in Calf
In an environment familiar to a farmer’s son, Heaney reflects on regeneration; autobiographical element;
Trout
Subjects: the sight and behaviour of life-forms in Heaney’s local river; autobiographical element;
Setting: the rivers and streams close to his boyhood home are very much part of Heaney’s landscape;
Waterfall
Subject: the power and shape of falling water presenting the challenge of recording the visual turbulence and disorder of a waterfall in a single frame;
Docker
Subjects: the perceived sectarian stance adopted by a unionist Protestant working-man towards the Catholic minority; unquestioned religious values; threatening prejudice; the uncompromising life-style and lack of human warmth of a bigot as it demonstrates itself in the pub and at home; a man left sitting on his own;
Setting: Belfast to which Heaney had come as a student; a city pub;
Poor Women in a City Church
A study of inner city devotions is inspired by the sight of Catholic women in an unheated Belfast church; unquestioned religious values; the comfort religion appears to bring to some peoples’ lives;
Gravities
Subjects: based on an immutable law of science the poem considers the force that draws objects inexorably together; it is about pull and resistance, freedom and restriction, seriousness and levity;
This ‘intellectual’ exposé requires no formal setting;
Twice Shy
Subjects: a nascent relationship with the woman who would become his wife and to whom he has been married for forty years when District and Circle is published in 2006; the nature of hormonal impulse and the forces that inhibit it; its place in the sometimes complicated love-life of young people; contemporary ‘ image’/ contemporary ‘cool’;
Setting: the Belfast that they shared as students and where they met.
Valediction
The doubts, fears and inhibitions of a young man who realises he is smitten with love and is hating a separation that might have unwelcome implications attached;
Setting: shared accommodation almost certainly in Belfast.
Lovers on Aran
Subjects: the search for mutual fulfilment (for the only time in the collection, perhaps, an allusion to the physical dimension; autobiographical element;
Setting: Aran, in Galway Bay, a place familiar to them where land and sea met and inter-reacted;
Poem
Subjects: sensitivity about his failure to come to terms with his family’s traditional way of life; the gap to fill; a vow of confidence that Marie’s support will help him achieve full identity as a poet; an expression of love and need;
Retrospective view of the dirt, damp and disorder of farm life;
Honeymoon Flight
Subject: a parallel between the act of faith required to board an aeroplane and life together following marriage; the seismic effect of ‘tying the knot’; potential causes of insecurity in the minds of newly-weds;
Setting: the metaphor depicting the uncertainty of the way ahead is juxtaposed with the familiar beauty of the Ulster landscape; the latter cements the marriage vows; sky effects;
Scaffolding
Subject: the crucial need for a sound ‘build’ in human relationships; in his attempt to reassure them both the speaker demonstrates a solemn sense of responsibility and also, it would seem, a touch of insecurity in himself;
Storm on the Island
Subjects: calming niggling doubts (using the analogy of a storm-swept island); sound foundation and mental strength enhance a couple’s chances of surviving together whatever extreme ordeals life may throw in their path;
Setting: an un-named island, actual or allegorical, in stormy weather;
Synge on Aran
Subjects: the wind’s erosive force; a poetic voice capable of equal abrasiveness; a much respected literary figure who accepted a sick man’s exile; prevailing weather perceived ultimately to be etched in the faces of the inhabitants;
Setting: one of the Aran islands in Galway Bay;
Saint Francis and the Birds
Subjects: an admired religious figure’s relationship with the natural world; personal missions of saint and poet ; spreading the message;
A setting Inspired, perhaps, by the sights and sounds of bird-flight around the areas in front of Italian cathedrals and churches; a film screen upon which words take form and behave like birds.
In Small Townlands
Subjects: an artist-friend, Colin Middleton, to whom the poem is dedicated, composing a painting in his own very personal style; the poet’s own questions of composition and his personal imprint; the transposition from classical to surreal at the hands of the artist;
Setting: an artist’s canvas set before a landscape that will be represented on it;
The Folk Singers
Subjects: the perceived clash between Irish folk music tradition and mass-produced sound-production; the loss to the traditional way of Irish life especially the loss of passion that this represents; a lament;
Living-quarters in which a young man is entertaining himself using ‘new’ sound technology: turn table and vinyl disc.
The Play Way
Subjects: the experiences of a trainee teacher seeking ways to encourage creative writing ; challenges to an age-old pedagogy of English-teaching; lesson-plans; assessment of the effectiveness of his attempt ; lively pupils; task-engagement;
Setting: a standard Irish classroom with routine litter.
Personal Helicon
Subjects: childhood sources of his later poetic inspiration; a beauty and the grotesque; the same childhood fears and growing beyond them; poet’s aims and aspirations;
Setting: the undergrowths, ditch-backs and farmyards of a poet’s childhood.
Finding the blend.
The best wines are more than simply the sum of their basic combination of grapes plus other factors including soil and sun. The key to excellence lies in the skill it takes to engineer the perfect blend. The poet pursues a similar process. In Death of a Naturalist Heaney is the ‘blender’.
Indeed, in some later poems, for example, North, Viking Dublin and Bone Dreams (from the collection North of 1975), Heaney will offer insights into the poetic process as he experiences it.
What is clear from this first collection, without specific comment from Heaney, is that, whatever the initial stages in the process, the moment a poem ‘comes on’ or ideas with a poetic charge emerge, the stages by which these are translated into poetic form involve a deliberate and sometimes lengthy process of composition and revision, selection and rejection that determines the ultimate structure, vocabulary, verse-form, imagery and potential for success of each poem.
At one stage or another Heaney will settle on: the length of the poem and its internal structure; the nature of the verse (free or rhymed); the choice of individual words or phrases most fitting to carry his ideas through, thanks to their meaning, implication or sound, and so on. Whilst this is a far from exhaustive list of considerations it does indicate that spontaneity can only gain from being worked upon.
In addition to the depth and richness of his personal ‘word hoard’, his personal store of material, gleaned from scholarship and interest, plus a sensitivity and a discrimination born of wide reading of literature, Heaney has access to a rich vein of poetic devices accessible to and used by all poets; he will select from the list deliberately, adapting them to his own intentions, perhaps because he wants them to add something, or ring a change, or carry an image through, or provide an echo; his aim in brief: to turn ordinary language into something special. There is an alphabetical list of such stylistic devices at the end of this volume; knowing them by name is useful but ‘spotting’ one is less valuable, perhaps, than appreciating what it brings to the poem.
The blending of these ingredients can be roughly translated as ‘style’, that is, the ‘mix’ favoured by Heaney in each poem to carry his message forward (v. footnotes that comment on this aspect).
Heaney provides a music pleasing to the ear.
Singing scored music brings an awareness of a code of letters, abbreviations and signs that can be placed above or below the notes to indicate or modify the ways in which a piece is performed. When the human voice becomes an instrument, then in terms of volume: f tells us to sing the next phrase loudly; ff to sing it very loudly; p softly; mp a little less softly; cresc (crescendo) tells us to sing the phrase increasingly loudly, and so on. Other words interpret the tempo: rall (rallentando): gradually to slow down the phrase. Other signs tell us to emphasise a word or to pause for an instant. Others advise on the sound: sad or harsh, light or sweet or slowly dying away. Without expression marks the piece would be monotonous and boring.
The same code could be applied to poetry. After all, poems are songs that, when read aloud, cry out for individual dynamics. Heaney actually uses specific musical terms in The Rain Stick published in The Spirit Level collection of 1996 (diminuendo, scales [un]diminished) but, of course, he does not provide coded recommendations alongside the text; musicians do this but, apart from ictus accents and some aspects of sprung-verse, poets do not. However, the words and phrases themselves invite variations of timbre, modulation and cadence and by reciting them with dynamics in mind, the reader can turn each poem into a linguistic ‘event’!
Heaney uses his writing skills to help, not least in his use of assonance (vocalic rhyme repeating similar vowel sounds within reach of each other to achieve effects, say, of euphony) The lush/ Sunset blush of Derry Derry Down produces those pleasing, mellifluous sounds that vowels emit rather than consonants. Heaney is a word-musician.
Word-pictures.
Heaney is a virtuoso painter of word-pictures.
When we stand in front of a painting, what the eye takes in, all in the same instant, is the completed item. Whatever its period or its genre, its finished state allows fairly rapid value judgments based on like or dislike to be made. The way to modify this initial view is to give the piece the attention it merits and ‘look’.
Only when prepared to ‘see’ might we realise, for example, that the composition was designed to lead the eye smoothly around the picture following its curves or shapes or groupings. In contrast, a portrait might provide single or multiple focal points requiring us to look in a different way, to assess what the features or the clothing or the stage-props reveal; this time the eye might move at random from detail to detail. A still life study or a dead body would surely provoke different reactions and different emotions: its blend of colours, its likeness to nature and so on. The key is to be prepared to look.
Look and discover that Heaney is an excellent painter of word-pictures of all the sorts described above: individual portraits, groups engaged in country pursuits, scenes from nature or past history. As with the painter he will have spent endless moments composing and revising his ‘canvases’ in search of perfection.
Moreover, he has advantages over the painter. The poem viewed on the page may be the ‘completed item’ but permits no immediate value-judgment. This can only take shape as you read the poem from its first word to its last; you follow Heaney step by step: he leads your inner eye in the direction he has chosen; only when it is over does he await your response.
Like the best painters, Heaney adds texture, colour, detail and shape to his ‘action’; he, too, generates emotion during the process. But, additionally, he can focus us on each of our senses in turn, by his choice of words and devices. Heaney’s oeuvre includes poems describing actual paintings he has observed; others narrate scenes etched, painting-like, upon his memory; some of his word-pictures are single-frame, others move from frame to frame, like a film.
Such is the edge that the poet has over other creators; Heaney makes the very best of it!
Stylistic devices
Translating ideas, notions, themes, that ‘something’ from the inner recess of the mind, into words involves selection: words and phrases, the ‘mot juste’ and so on, then the weaving of these lexical items into the fabric of the piece. This weaving process is a means to multiple ends: flow, sound, rhythm, echo, emphasis and so on; part of the labour is drafting and redrafting text to achieve maximum impact in the finished product.
Published poetry, though not perhaps written initially with readers in mind, is there for their enjoyment and can be an intellectual challenge as well as a pleasure. Part of that enjoyment can legitimately include analysis of the style of the piece. What follows is a list of devices open to writers as part of their technique.
Whilst there might be no intrinsic value in spotting a particular device and knowing it by name, nevertheless it is good training. It helps the reader to be inquisitive and begs the question as to why the writer chose that particular device and to what end. We cannot always tease out the poet’s real intention but perseverance brings huge rewards!
‘A figure of speech is a way of talking or writing by which you say what you don’t mean and yet mean what you say. For example, ‘He blows his own trumpet’. You don’t mean he has a trumpet but you do mean that he blows it. HUNT, Fresh Howlers (1930)
Antithesis: an arrangement of contrasted words in corresponding places in contiguous phrases, to express a contrast of ideas.
Chiasmus: the arrangement in parallel clauses of related terms in a reversed order, so AB BA as opposed to parallel order AB AB
Cliché: A phrase whose wording has become fixed, or almost fixed, as usage has given it a fixed meaning. Cliches commonly use a recognised literary device which eventually uses its power
Comparison: A statement that there is a likeness between things which can in fact be likened
Dual meaning: This when a word or phrase is used so as to be understood in two different meanings, both of which fit the sentence (e.g. a literal and a symbolic meaning), and in order that the two meanings may be related with each other
Enjambement/ enjambment: The continuation of a sentence, in verse, into the following line. Traditionally an enjambement is permissible if the break is at the normal break in the syntax or at a normal break between breath groups. This happens more routinely outside those conditions in free verse.
Enumeration: The arrangement of terms in succession, e.g. nouns in apposition, adverbs or adverbial phrases; economy of words is achieved. As a literary device enumerations can be used to add implications and rhythm to the subject matter, by grouping or gradation or even intentional iincoherency.
Euphemism: replacement of a distasteful by a more pleasant term, to refer to the same thing.
Free indirect speech: the expression of what is spoken or thought without introductory words such as He said, ‘…’ or He said that.. In narrative fis may be signalised by use of vocabulary appropriate to the character rather than the words of the author. Continuous fis becomes ‘interior monologue.
Hyperbole: the intentional use of an exaggerated term in place of the one more properly applicable, adding implications to the subject matter.
Inversion: The reversal of the normal order of the members of a sentence, perhaps to avoid ambiguity or to bring certain words into stressed or key position or to modify the rhythm.
Irony: The use of words containing a sufficient and apparently serious meaning in themselves, but conveying also, intentionally, to a more initiated person a further, generally opposed meaning; frequently the first meaning is laudatory or untenable
Litotes: intentional understatement inviting the reader to rectify. Frequently a negative expression.
Metaphor: an expression which refers to a thing or action by means of a term for a quite different thing or action, related to it, not by any likeness in fact but by an imagined analogy which the context allows.
A simile uses words like ‘like’ or ‘as…as’. Metaphors and similes have 2 terms: the thing meant and the thing ‘imported’ as a means of expressing, by analogy, what is meant.
Personifications are only 1 sort of metaphor.
This substitution of words has wide uses: ornament, implication, overtone. Its use may be regarded as a special means of revealing hidden truth.
Apart from enriching the thought by a device of form and enhancing the reader’s contact with the author, metaphors and similes may be significant or characteristic because of their reiterated suggestion of a writer’s preoccupations or his processes of thought.
Metonymy: the use of a word in place of another with which it is associated in meaning.
Objective-subjective: ‘objective’ – expressing reality as it is or attempting to do so; the reality of events or things is regarded as ‘external’. The reality may mental or emotional experience, examined rather than evoked. ‘Subjective’- expressing a version of reality in which it is modified by emotion or preconceived belief; or expressing conscious or subconscious experiences of states of mind
Oxymoron: the juxtaposition of contradictory or incongruous terms, understood as a paradox
Paradox: a statement or implication expressed so as to appear inconsistent with accepted belief, or absurd, or exaggerated, but intended to be realised by the reader as an acceptable or important truth, in some respect; often placed as a conclusion; in a paradox there is often a word which cries out for redefinition in order to provide the alternative meaning which the writer has prepared his reader to accept.
Pathetic fallacy: ascribing human traits or feelings to inanimate nature, corresponding with those being experienced by a character or ‘voice’.
Periphrasis: the expression of a meaning by more words than are strictly necessary or expected, so that additional implications are brought in.
Porte-manteau word: a deliberate mixture of 2 words into one retaining both meanings: ‘’a bestpectable gentleman’, respectable guy wearing glasses!
Preciosity: aiming at or affecting refinement or distinction in expression; avoiding vulgar phrases; visibly introducing greater care in expression; using this precision, formal arrangement of words, difficult combinations of ideas, allusions and puns in the hope of revealing truths not to be expressed in plain and simple terms; exaggerating this so that, for example an ‘armchair’ might become a ‘commodity for conversation’!
Repetition: expressing a meaning or an attitude by implication, through the deliberate use of a word or phrase a second time
Symbol: a term for an object representing, conventionally or traditionally, an abstraction.
Synecdoche: the use of a word denoting a ‘part’ in place of the word for the whole, so ‘100 sails’ meaning ‘100 ships’.
Synaesthesia: the representation of a sensation or image belonging to one of the five senses by words proper to another (‘loud tie’; Disney’s ‘Fantasia’).
Zeugma: providing syntactical economy of words by using one word with dual possibility so that two meanings are taken separately – ‘he took his hat and his leave’.