In "From The Frontier Of Writing" by Seamus Heaney, Heaney uses imagery and the extended metaphor of driving down a road to show the stress and anxiety writers face dealing with critics and editors. Heaney compares criticism as a writer to driving down a road to show that there are many obstacles and problems you run into. Writers are often criticized for th things they write about or the type of writing style they have and thats the issue that Heaney was trying to address through this poem.
In the poem there are alot of symbols and metahphors used to describe the feeling of being a writer criticized and watched by others. For example, one line says "the car stops in the road, the troops inspect its make and number" and this shows that people are constantly looking at your works and trying to catergorize it under a certain label. Also, I think that cars represented like the speaker's pen and the road was his canvas or writing surface. It makes sense that Heaney would use a car to relate to writing bcuz they have so much in common. with a car ur able to move as freely as you want to. ALso, you can go in any direction that you desire to go in. It the same with writing, the pen is your vehicle and you can allow it to take you where ever your mind desires to go. The troops and inspectors in this poem represent the critics and editors in the world. They always have something to say pertaining to different types of art such as writing. This can be discouraging at times bcuz they're known for putting people's work down and trying to change it. But I think the whole point of this poem was to show that you can never limit the creativity or thinking process of a writer.
There is an overall tone of insecurity and caution. The speaker doesn't really address a certain person but instead, its almost as if He or she is making it public for everyone to hear. Its like they're tryin to warn us about the different critics and things out there that try to limitor censor our true thoughts and ways of expressing it. They saying that writing is one of those few liberties that no one can take away from us.
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4 comments:
Mr. Tickle me Elmo i really liked your interpretation of this poem. it infused thing that we talked about in class with some thing new. The thing that you brought up that i hadn't considered was that the car is a pen and the road is the path that the car follows. overall i really enjoyed your commentary, and will probably end up using this as a study guide for test and more specifically the IB oral
Awww thanks Roman! Yea, I basically took the dominant images that kept showing up in the poem and I compared them to the overall tone and theme of the poem. Heaney kept bringing up cars and traveling throughout the poem and I noticed whenever he did, the car was either in a very tight space or it was being stopped. Thats wat Heaney was trying to say about writing and the process of openly expressing your personal thoughts and feelings.
Aaron i really liked ur interpretation of the canvas and that pen. I never thought of it that way. But it really makes sense. I also thought it was interesting how instead of having a negative connotation, u said that the poem showed the creativity that writting/driving along the road gives a person. You had very good interpretations and i really enjoyed reading your commentary!
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