Seamus Heaney Selected Poem For Masters all themes and details

About : Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as one of the major poets of the 20th century. A native of Northern Ireland, Heaney was raised in County Derry, and later lived for many years in Dublin. He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past."

Seamus heaney follower poem theme : 

Follower is a poem that focuses on the relationship between father and son, shifting in perspective from past to present, giving the reader an insight into a son's reaction to the passing of time and that same father grown old.

Follower" is about the loss of tradition. In fact, the main theme of Heaney's poetic career is the sense of loss that accompanies moving away from tradition. His poems often focus on the details of his family life in his childhood before his personal break with tradition.

Death of a naturalist themes:   

Death of a Naturalist is a blank verse poem that focuses on the loss of childhood innocence. Human Beings and Nature. “Death of a Naturalist” is, in part, about the relationship between people and the natural world.

The first person speaker concentrates on the resident frog population and the frog life-cycle.

But as the poem progresses the speaker's viewpoint alters - the once fascinating frogs become a threat, the language changes radically to reflect this and begins to create tension within the poem.

The two stanzas are highly contrasting. The first is full of positive delight as the boy observes and is fascinated by the frogs and frogspawn of the flax-dam. The second brings fear and loathing as the male frogs invade with their coarse croaking and belligerent menace.

There is a parallel between the life cycle of the frog and the development of the boy - here is an innocent child changing into a young adolescent, a world of delight and innocence transformed into one that threatens and disgusts.

Punishment 

The poem Punishment by Seamus Heaney was inspired by the discovery of a dead body of a young girl in a bog who was believed to be killed on the charge of adultery.

Punishment is one of Seamus Heaney's poems that explores the nature of violence and revenge within society.  In “Punishment," Seamus Heaney shows us the universality of violence, especially violence towards women, throughout human history. As presented in the poem, violence against women is used as a way of keeping them in line, to discourage them from transgressing the values and mores of the community.

Mid term break 

Mid-Term Break” describes the aftermath of a tragedy: the speaker's four-year-old brother has been hit by a car and killed. But the poem doesn't spend a lot of time describing the accident or memorializing the dead child. Instead, the poem focuses on the way that other people respond to this tragedy. The themes of loss, family, suffering and attempts at coming to terms with reality. 

Digging”

Digging” explores the relationship between three generations: the speaker, his father, and the speaker's grandfather. The speaker lives a very different life to his forebears—he's a writer, whereas his father and grandfather were farmers.

 The main theme of the poem is the author's struggle to fit in with the past generations of his family. Because his father never passed on to him the tradition of digging, the narrator finds his own way to connect himself with his past: writing. So he took pen instead of taking spade.

Digging is a symbol of trying to search for something in life. It also means that you have good "intuition" and your ability to pick up feelings "in the air" or being involved in new things is important to you. Working with the soil in the garden means that it is time to think about what you need in life. 

Funeral Rites 

Seamus Heaney's poem “Funeral Rites” emphasizes social awareness, especially in its overt references to the violent "Troubles” between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. ... Heaney calls for the deaths to be marked by private and public ritual. The history of war between the Catholic and protestant. For more : click

Tollund man 

Tollund man was murdered by being hanged. He was buried with a rope around his neck. This shows that it was a violent act and not an accident. The Tollund Man was unusual in the fact that his body was not completely preserved like other 'bog bodies' of the time.

He represents a desire to better one's community through the giving of one's own life. The Tollund Man died through ritual human sacrifice. It is unlikely that scientists will ever know for sure what reason the Tollund Man gave his life.

The Tollund Man is important because he was found fairly low in the peat bog (almost 6 feet) and was found with a rope around his neck, which surprised people because they had not seen a mummy that had been hung before mummification.

Casualty poem 

Casualty is an elegy written by Irish poet and writer Seamus Heaney. It describes the death of one of the poet's friends after the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972 in Northern Ireland. ... Heaney loved this man, and took the time throughout the poem to describe him in detail. Unfortunately, his life ended tragically in a bombing.

Seamus Heaney’s “Casualty” is written as an elegy for a friend who was killed in a bombing in Northern Ireland shortly after Bloody Sunday. His friend, who was a Catholic, failed to obey a curfew set in place by the Irish Republican Army. He was consequently killed in the bombing of the pub he often frequented. “Casualty” serves as an elegy for this friend in that Heaney uses it to remember and honor the deceased. The poem also allows Heaney to express his opinion on the relative guilt of his friend and of the I.R.A.

Questions :  Heaney's testament of nature in death of naturalist