Unit AS 2 - The Study of Poetry Written after and the Study of Prose 1800-1945
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Essay- Rural Landscapes in the Poetry of Heaney and Frost
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Unit AS 2 - The Study of Poetry Written after and the Study of Prose 1800-1945
Institution
CCEA
This question is about landscapes. Read “Desert Places” by Robert Frost and “The Peninsula” by Seamus Heaney. By close analysis of the poetic methods used, and drawing on relevant external biographical information, compare and contrast how these poets write about landscapes.
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Unit AS 2 - The Study of Poetry Written after and the Study of Prose 1800-1945
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This question is about landscapes. Read “Desert Places” by Robert Frost and
“The Peninsula” by Seamus Heaney. By close analysis of the poetic methods
used, and drawing on relevant external biographical information, compare and
contrast how these poets write about landscapes.
Heaney (with “The Peninsula”) and Frost (with “Desert Places”) both
explore the concept of landscapes, particularly in relation to poetic inspiration
and the mind of the artists. This is emphasised by the poems’ respective titles.
Frost finds a gloomy isolation in the surrounding landscape, reflected in the
metaphor of “Desert Places”, where the barren landscape reflects his own
depression. Contrastingly, Heaney’s poem demonstrates how the struggling
poet found peace in his local and landscape, particularly in the ocean. This is
emphasised by the title “The Peninsula”. Frost chooses to highlight his
isolation through his poetic structure. The poem is a compact sixteen lines,
reflecting the tight and inescapable landscape of loneliness, which conveys a
sense of claustrophobia to the reader. This loneliness is emphasised by the
use of a first person narrative, which demonstrates how Frost uses his
theoretical landscape to explore his own mental state.
Differently, Heaney uses extensive enjambement across four quatrains.
Therefore, despite the poems having the same number of lines, Heaney’s
“The Peninsula” expresses a broader scope of the land and indicates a level
of the interconnectedness between man and nature to the reader. Unlike
Frost, Heaney employs the second-person point of view in his poem, taking on
an advisory tone which creates a more uplifting atmosphere than Frost.
Despite these differences in tone, both poets express an intense
isolation in their landscapes, mainly as a result of a lack of inspiration. Frost
uses the landscape of the snowy forest to express the downward spiral of his
mental state with the “Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast… covered
smooth in snow”. Combined with the fricative, the enjambement in this stanza
conveys a fast pace to the reader, displaying the radicalisation of Frost’s
mental illness. This is heightened by the repetition of “fast”, which creates a
cumulative effect, emphasising the deterioration of the persona. The poet
laments his own lack of inspiration through pathetic fallacy, with the blank
snow symbolising the blank page and the blank mind of the uninspired poet.
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