ELLA 4 ... A LEVEL ENGLISH LANG AND LIT
Compare and Contrast the ways in which Heaney and Blake write about innocence and experience in their poetry
Both Seamus Heaney and William Blake explore the themes of innocence and experience in their poems. Heaney’s poetry develops powerful ideas of sacrifice in which childhood’s innocence is surrendered to a more experienced and developed life. Similarly, Blake explores innocence and experience through his religious awareness of sacrifice where innocence is repeatedly presented through childhood’s lack of experience. Both poets poetry have religious references drawing from a childhood of Christianity. However, through Blake’s poetry we feel a solid sense of obstruction to the organised religion of Catholicism which is evidently portrayed through his references to childhood and experience; whereas, Heaney’s are more based in existent marking life experiences.
‘Blackberry Picking’ by Heaney, is a chronological and descriptive poem in which the poet uses a nostalgic tone to recall his childhood world of ‘Blackberry Picking’. The poet begins with a pathetic fallacy “Late August” which directly reflects the attitude portrayed in the poem by creating a happy atmosphere even though it is the end of summer as blackberries ripen in late summers in which children gather and collect enough blackberries to fill a whole bath but cannot eat them all. The action of Blackberry picking illustrates the loss of innocence as one enters the stage of puberty and discovers new feelings which can be portrayed through the quote “Blackberries would ripen” in which the maturity of a youth which its pleasures are experienced by the tasting of the blackberries is highlighted. A semantic field of religion also adds to the concept of loss of innocence, with lexical choices such as “thickened wine” and “summer’s blood” which is a clear reference to Jesus Christ’s flesh and blood in which he sacrificed his life for us as well as the children’s sacrifice on giving up their childhood to a
Both Seamus Heaney and William Blake explore the themes of innocence and experience in their poems. Heaney’s poetry develops powerful ideas of sacrifice in which childhood’s innocence is surrendered to a more experienced and developed life. Similarly, Blake explores innocence and experience through his religious awareness of sacrifice where innocence is repeatedly presented through childhood’s lack of experience. Both poets poetry have religious references drawing from a childhood of Christianity. However, through Blake’s poetry we feel a solid sense of obstruction to the organised religion of Catholicism which is evidently portrayed through his references to childhood and experience; whereas, Heaney’s are more based in existent marking life experiences.
‘Blackberry Picking’ by Heaney, is a chronological and descriptive poem in which the poet uses a nostalgic tone to recall his childhood world of ‘Blackberry Picking’. The poet begins with a pathetic fallacy “Late August” which directly reflects the attitude portrayed in the poem by creating a happy atmosphere even though it is the end of summer as blackberries ripen in late summers in which children gather and collect enough blackberries to fill a whole bath but cannot eat them all. The action of Blackberry picking illustrates the loss of innocence as one enters the stage of puberty and discovers new feelings which can be portrayed through the quote “Blackberries would ripen” in which the maturity of a youth which its pleasures are experienced by the tasting of the blackberries is highlighted. A semantic field of religion also adds to the concept of loss of innocence, with lexical choices such as “thickened wine” and “summer’s blood” which is a clear reference to Jesus Christ’s flesh and blood in which he sacrificed his life for us as well as the children’s sacrifice on giving up their childhood to a