Structure + Etc For Each Heaney Poem Flashcards
(13 cards)
What is the structure of Personal helicon?
5 stanzas
As he grows older through each stanza, he is able to see further into the wells.
What is the rhyme scheme for Personal helicon?
Alternating rhyme scheme with the use of half-rhymes scattered throughout.
Reflects the alternations between childhood and adulthood.
Wells allowed for personal reflection in youth and poetry does so in adulthood.
What form is The forge?
Sonnet.
The use of traditional form of poetry reinforces the traditional skill and work demonstrated in the forge.
The octet focuses on the forge, with the sestet focusing on the blacksmith.
What is the rhyme scheme of The forge?
The departure from the traditional Shakespearean rhyme scheme and Petrarchan rhyme scheme for sonnets reflects the changing world that surrounds the blacksmith and his work.
What is the structure of Bogland?
7 quatrains of free verse, a sequence of short sentences told in an informal tone.
It’s structured like a bog- with short lines and an uncovering of new layers each stanza.
What is the rhyme of The harvest bow?
Couplets/half-rhymes throughout. Complete rhyme in stanza 4.
What is the rhyme scheme of The harvest bow?
Longer lines mirror the intricacies in making the harvest bow itself.
Heaney uses occasional slant rhyme, assonance, and consonance to create a lyrical and reflective tone that suits the personal and meditative nature of the poem.
What is the form of Had I not been awake?
Enjambment is used throughout to reflect the movement and progression of Heaney from illness to recovery, to reflection, to inspiration.
It is also used to represent how quick and fleeting the moment was, reinforcing the idea of a singular experience of poetic fear/health fear that Heaney is able to recover from
What is the structure of The Conway Stewart?
Tercets with unusually short lines, perhaps showing the difficulty giving expression to a difficult experience.
What is the form of The Conway Stewart?
Enjambment used throughout, the whole poem is one sentence.
This represents the singularity of the experience and how significant it was in Heaney’s childhood.
Rhyme of had I not been awake
Irregular / subtle rhyme: The poem does not follow a strict rhyme scheme.
It primarily uses free verse, but there are occasional instances of assonance, consonance, and slant rhyme.
Rhythm of had I not been awake
The rhythm is free and conversational, characteristic of free verse.
There is no consistent meter, but Heaney makes use of enjambment and caesura to control pacing and emphasize certain moments or ideas.
The line lengths vary, contributing to a feeling of a thought process unfolding spontaneously.
Some lines have a more iambic quality (e.g., “Had I not been awake I would have missed it”) which gives a gentle rise and fall, mirroring the theme of waking and sleeping.
Structure of had I not been awake
The poem is divided into four tercets (i.e., four stanzas of three lines each), making a total of 12 lines. This structure gives the poem a measured, balanced form, in contrast to the unpredictability of the moment it describes (being suddenly awakened).
