Below are two paragraphs where I have taken the notes referred to in an earlier post and I've written them up as full paragraphs.
Can you identify the different sections of analytical and comparative paragraphs here?
Heaney presents the land as a place of work. The poem Follower is set on Heaney's family farm where he grew up. He describes his father working the land in the opening of the poem where he says
'His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.’
His father's work is emphasized here by the dominance of verbs, such as, 'narrowed', 'angled', and 'mapping'. These pre-modifiers are used to add detail and dynamic action to the scene being described. Readers are drawn in by the energy and detail of the description.
Similarly Frost also presents the land as a place of work. Although in the poem After Apple Picking Frost presents the reader with an image of exhaustion and weariness after an intense period of harvesting apples.
‘My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,’
This farm land is working land and this is emphasised by the use of two pre-modifiers 'long two pronged'. Nouns not verbs dominate this quotation and this conveys a static scene rather than Heaney's verbs that convey action. This is reinforced by the adverb 'still' that communicates stasis and inaction.
Frost also introduces the powerful religious noun ‘heaven’. This alongside apple trees, brings connotations of the Garden of Eden, suggesting perhaps the work of harvesting is holy, spiritual, and good. And may bring to mind Jacob's dream in a heavy sleep of a ladder extending to heaven recorded in Genesis.
The single use of the verb ‘sticking’ is used only to present equipment that has not been put away after the work has been done. This is used to reinforce the idea of tiredness. Readers are lulled by the nouns and the static scene here.
322 - words including quotations
299 - words excluding quotations
