Key Skills in English 2019

Key Skills in English

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Sample Answers to Unseen Poem

1. Contrast: ‘Did sea define the land or land the sea?’ This line uses contrast to highlight the difference in power which exists between the land and the sea. The hardness of the land and the yielding quality of the sea have already been contrasted to show how two completely opposite things can depend on each other to co-exist. The contrast, which is posed as a question, highlights and emphasises difference but subtly suggests a unity. Personification: ‘throw wide arms of rock around a tide/That yielded’ The land and waves are presented as ‘lovers’ as if they are embracing each other. This technique helps us to see natural forces with fresh eyes, as though they were living beings. Both the land and sea become mysterious again, making us ask where does all this energy come from? Tone: ‘Sea broke on land to full identity’. The tone of the poem seems calm, due to the repetition of ‘soft’ and words like ‘dazzling’ and ‘glinting’. There is almost a sense of awe beneath this calm, as the poet wonders about impossible questions. However, this closing line about ‘full identity’ captures the tone of quiet triumph. Assonance: ‘The timeless waves, bright, sifting, broken glass’ The assonance on the long vowel in ‘time’ and ‘bright’ in this line adds to the musical quality of the poem and slows down the pace in keeping with the calm atmosphere. Enjambment: ‘did Aran rush / to throw wide arms of rock around a tide /That yielded with an ebb, ...’

The lines flowing into each other capture the flowing movement of the tide coming in, which is cleverly presented as though it is the land actually rushing toward the sea. The flow then breaks with the comma after ‘ebb’, imitating waves ebbing back suddenly. The rhythm therefore imitates the movement of the sea.

2. I think the poem is exploring the idea that things come to be (or know what they are) only by interacting with what they are not. The foreignness of the waves (‘sifting from the Americas’) is emphasized here. The poem suggests that whether it is lovers, nations, or physical features of geography, contrast is the key to recognizing what something is. I think it’s an open-minded message. Trust in difference and accept it, the poet seems to be saying.

3. The use of personification strikes me most. There is something very intense about two creatures in love. It’s also interesting to see how violently the waves bash the west coast of Ireland and look at all that energy and think not of violence but of love. It makes me wonder about the line between passion (as love) and passion as suffering. The closing line is full of wonder at the strangeness of love: ‘Sea broke on land to full identity.’ Usually we think of identity as being wholly ourselves, and unbroken, but Heaney seems to be saying that full identity is letting go of ‘me’ and becoming ‘us’. I think he is suggesting that people who don’t trust enough to love, or travel, or get out of their narrow sense of who and what they are, can never fully know themselves, or anything else.

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Unit 2: Poetry

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