Q. What is the tone of Clearances 7?
The language of the poem is striking in its simplicity and there is very little figurative language used. This simplicity creates a poignant tone as the poet observes the moving scene in front of him in precise detail.
Q. What type of poem is Clearances?
Structure and Form This poem would fit the form of the Petrarchan Sonnet as it is divided into an octave and a sestet. The setting of the poem is developed in the octave and resolution comes in the sestet. However, the classic Petrarchan Sonnet has a regular rhyme scheme, whereas this is written in blank verse.
Q. When all the others were away at Mass meaning?
This is a personal poem on a precious incident between mother and son that will always be remembered. Both are engaged in a domestic task working in unison and perhaps of more importance is that they had the time together to share in potato peeling while the rest of the family was away at Mass.
Q. What does our fluent dipping knives meaning?
The potatoes are the “cold comforts” between them, and the “little pleasant splashes” from the peels are the only things that bring them “to their senses.” What the line “our fluent dipping knives” means is that the act of peeling potatoes together communicates more between them than words ever could.
Q. How is Heaney different from Auden in clearances 7?
Both poets write about losing a loved one through death. Heaney writes about the loss of a parent, whereas Auden writes about the death of a lover. The language in Clearances 7: In the last minutes is striking in its simplicity and there is very little figurative language used.
Q. Why did Seamus Heaney write the book clearances?
An elegiac sequence of eight sonnets on the death of Seamus Heaney’s mother, “Clearances” is a reworking and revisiting of many of his early domestic and agrarian poems. At the same time it represents an attempt to confront the importance of his mother in his life and work.
Q. What does the solder mean in clearances by Seamus Heaney?
The solder, anthropomorphically figured as “weeping,” is a psychic projection of the pain of this connection and disconnection, a figurative sloughing off of those emotional connections in order to adhere to those other things that he needs to thrive as a poet.
Q. What does the directional break mean in clearances?
The meaning in several of the sonnets in “Clearances” follows the traditional split, with the opening octave acting as a single unit of meaning and the concluding sestet comprising a second unit. In other poems, however, Heaney introduces the directional break after line 7 (number 5), line 9 (number 8), or line 10 (number 7).
