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Similarities
- CHILDHOOD: In the beginning, both poets discuss the comfort found in their childhoods and a sense of nostalgia is portrayed. Wordsworth’s use of images of the warmth contrast to the winters scene and images of darkness. This warmth reflects Wordsworth’s warm feelings when looking back on his childhood. He uses describes it as a time of “rapture” which suggests he felt a joyous ecstasy and it was a time of much celebration, allowing him to look back fondly. At the start of his poem, Heaney also implies a sense of comfort and enjoyment in his childhood through the phrase “best of all”. This shows his youthful fascination for the frogs and the flax-dam. He also recalls a vivid memory of his childhood, “Mrs Walls would tell us how”, which suggests that he was enthusiastic and still able to recall what he learnt in those days.
- PLACE: Both poets describe the settings of their poems as places that hold much sentimental value to them. Wordsworth’s place is the frozen lake where he lived in the Lake District. He uses images of arm th such as “blaz’d” and “cottage” to paint a rural setting with a great sense of cosines and comfort. He laso uses the pronoun “us” which gives a sense of communal or shared happiness between the boys and the larger community. Not only is the place important to him but the people who experienced it with him during his younger years. Heaney’s place of comfort was the “flax-dam” which he described as “the heart”. This suggests it was a central place in the ‘townland’ where Heaney lived in Ireland and shows the importance of the flax-dam to the speaker. Through the use of the adverb “delicately” to describe the disgusting scene of the flax-dam he shows his appreciation for the place despite its gruesome features.
- NATURE: Both poets, even though Heaney’s opinion changed by the end, showed appreciation for nature’s beauty in the places where it is maybe overlooked or hidden. Wordsworth creates an image of a deeply frozen countryside with a voice of its own. The simile “tinkled like iron” shows the natural world to be hard and frozen yet beautiful and the use of “rang” and “tinkled” suggest the countryside is alive, almost with music. Heaney use the phrase “best of all…warm thick slobber” which shows us it’s doubly thrilling for him. It shows he is engaged rather than repulsed by the place that would normally turn people away.
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Differences
- CHANGE; Even though both poets, by the end of the play, have matured into adults, they seem to have very different views and opinions on their childhoods. Wordsworth appears to reminisce on his childhood years with longing and great happiness. The final image of the “orange sky” reminds us the day is ending, as is the year, and as is his childhood as he became an adult. However the intensity of the orange sky reflects the energy of his youth which he is still able to remember even deep into his adult years. He also uses the idea of “melancholy” to introduce a sense of sadness and an insight into his nostalgia at these happier days of innocence which are now long passed. The tone he uses seems to be almost wistful as if he is yearning for those simpler times of youth. Heaney’s outlook on his childhood seems to change as he remembers the events at the flax dam “one hot day”. The change in tone in the 2nd stanza shows his change of views on this day. He recalls the events and says he “sickened, turned and ran” which directly contrasts to his enthusiasm and passion in the beginning. Metaphorically this is the point when he lost his innocence and haas been exposed to the dangers of the world. He also uses the verb “clutch” which suggests he has a new fear of the frogs and believes hell ever escape the new found knowledge of the “angry frogs”. This is another metaphor for his loss of innocence and the impact it has had on his adulthood.
- PLACE: By the end of the play, Heaney’s opinion of his ‘place’ seems to have changed whereas Wordsworth continues to remember the happiness and exiting he felt in his ‘place’. Wordsworth uses verbs such as “flew” and “hiss’d along” to create a sense of freedom and emphasise the feelings of ecstasy he felt. He also likens himself to an “untir’d horse” which shows he had no fear and was full of energy to explore and discover the world. Heaney’s view of his ‘special place’ has become tainted by the end of the play as he started to remember it with hatred and disgust. He likens it to a battlefield through the use of battle like imagery; “invaded”, “cocked”, “angry frogs”, “mud grenades”. This suggests the speaker of the poem is at war with the place and the animals that live there. He has lost his love for the once comforting place nd now he finds fear in the thought of it unlike Wordsworth who remembers his place fondly and with nostalgia.
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