Heaney - Oysters

Question 1

Gist X

Answer 1

about the gluttony of the privileged classes
symbol of violent colonisation and violent history of Ireland

alternative reading - man and woman relationship/ uneasy marriage between Ireland and coloniser

political relationship between british and Irish
rape of the countryside

Question 2

Themes present

Answer 2

Invasion/violence (colonisation)
man vs nature
poetry/writing
nature
memories
ancestry

Question 3

Sheers poems to compare

Answer 3

Late Spring - human damage to nature (castrating lambs)

The Fishmonger

Question 4

Context

Answer 4

find out about history of violence of Ireland

Question 5

Lit Crit

Answer 5

‘this poem opens the oyster, the mouth, the meal and the book’ - Ricks

Question 6

Sounds of words

Answer 6

clacked - onomatopoeia
ripped and shuck and scattered - onomatopoeia
frond lipped, brine-stung… glut of privilege

Question 7

Figurative/symbolic language

Answer 7

…?what does this mean… like poetry or freedom

Question 8

Types of imagery

Answer 8

x

Question 9

Figurative/symbolic language

Answer 9

The Romans hauled their oysters south to Rome (Romans symbol of the English and oysters symbolise Irish)
…?what does this mean… like poetry or freedom

Question 10

Types of imagery

Answer 10

water imagery
sea imagery
gustatory imagery

Question 11

Word play, patterns, clusters

Answer 11

x

Question 12

Juxtaposition, oxymoron, contrasts

Answer 12

xx

Question 13

Word play, patterns, clusters

Answer 13

I ate the day

tang might quicken me all into verb, pure verb

Question 14

Juxtaposition, oxymoron, contrasts

Answer 14

x

Question 15

Poem open and close

Answer 15

x

Question 16

Perspectives

Answer 16

x

Question 17

Tone

Answer 17

x

Question 18

Type of stanzas

Answer 18

x

Question 19

Line lengths and their contrasts

Answer 19

x

Question 20

Type of stanzas

Answer 20

5 quatrains

Question 21

Line lengths and their contrasts

Answer 21

ripped and shucked and scattered - polysyndeton and extended line length contrasts to previously shorter lines to place emphasis the violence caused by colonisation

Question 22

Caesura/enjambment

Answer 22

Bivalves: the split bulb (symbolises split between republic and Northern Ireland)
Damp panniers disgorge..the frond-lipped brine-stung…glut of privilege - creates a sense of spilling over and emphasises avaricious nature of the privileged.

Question 23

Masculine and feminine rhyme

Answer 23

x

Question 24

Form

Answer 24

x

Question 25

Masculine and feminine rhyme

Answer 25

lacking - further reinforces uneasy relationship between Ireland and the coloniser

Question 26

Form

Answer 26

free verse