ELLA 4 ... A LEVEL ENGLISH LANG AND LIT - 2674 Words

Compare and Contrast the ways in which Heaney and Blake write about innocence and experience in their poetry Both Seamus Heaney and William Blake explore the themes of innocence and experience in their poems. Heaney’s poetry develops powerful ideas of sacrifice in which childhood’s innocence is surrendered to a more experienced and developed life. Similarly, Blake explores innocence and experience through his religious awareness of sacrifice where innocence is repeatedly presented through childhood’s lack of experience. Both poets poetry have religious references drawing from a childhood of Christianity. However, through Blake’s poetry we feel a solid sense of obstruction to the organised religion of Catholicism which is evidently†¦show more content†¦The experienced in ‘Holy Thursday (innocence)’ are described as â€Å"beadles† suggesting that they are very violent and rigid with the children and ready to punish them. â€Å"Beneath them sit the aged men wise guardians of the poor† the use of the adjectives such as â€Å"oldâ €  to describe the beadles highlights the fact that they are experienced and highlights their authority whereas, â€Å"poor† conveys again the innocence of the children. The contrast between the innocent and the experience in this poem is seen as a total corruption while in ‘Blackberry Picking’ there is a link between both where the transition from one to another is being described. Likewise, In ‘Mid-Term Break’ Heaney reinforces the idea of an innocence experience as seen in ‘Holy Thursday (Innocence)’ in which a description of an episode in the poet’s childhood is described. However, this time Heaney does this in a more serious way as he portrays the experience of grief of a loved one. The title ‘Mid-Term Break’ is an abstract noun with a double meaning, as it’s telling us that it was a break from school which directly implies that the poem focuses on a childhood memory, and also portrays the broken heart of the innocent child. As usual in Heaney’s poetry, the use of iambic pentameter in ‘Mid-Term Break’ not only suggests