Thursday, April 24, 2014

Sound Patterns in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney

Throughout this last part of the semester I have been learning about sound patters in poetry. We have studied alliteration, assonance, and consonance. Consonance is when the consonant sound are the same anywhere in the words. Assonance is when the vowels rhyme, and alliteration is when the two or more consonants are together and sound the same. The poem I analyzed is a poem by Seamus Heaney. The poem is called "Honeymoon Fight."

Below, the patchwork earth, dark hems of hedge,
the long grey tapes of road that bind and loose
villages and fields in casual marriage:
we bank above the small lough and farmhouse

And the sure green world goes topsy-turvy
As we climb out of our familiar landscape.
The engine noises change. You look at me.
The coastline slips away beneath the wing-tip.

And launched right off the earth by force of fire
We hand, miraculous, above the water,
Dependent on the invisible air
To keep us airborne and to bring us further.

Ahead of us the sky's a geyser now.
A calm voice talks of cloud yet we feel lost.
Air-pockets jolt our fears and down we go.
Travellers, at this point, can only trust.

At the very bottom of the poem I analyzed the sound patterns. To be more specific, it is the very last sentence. "Travelers, at this point, can only trust." This is a good example of alliteration. Both words have the same consonant sounds. "TR" AS a traveler on a plane, you can only trust.  This helps the poem flow,and gives it a nice sweet point to end on.
The other spot that I did some analyzation was the first sentence on the last paragraph. "Ahead of us the sky's a geyser." This is an example of assonance. Assonances really helps the poem flow easier. Geysers go up, and so does the sky, it is really a picture perfect sentence too.
This poem is loaded with assonance, alliteration, and consonance sound patters. They are in every single paragraph...can you find them?

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