Poetry Comparison

This piece of coursework I am going to write will be a comparison between two poems called ‘The road not taken’ which is a poem written by Robert Frost and a poem called ‘Digging’ which is written by an extremely well established poet named Seamus Heaney. Heaney was born on April 13th 1939 and was born in Dublin. He is a multi-award winning poet with awards like the T.S Eliot prize and the Nobel Prize in literature under his belt. He was also the Harvard and Oxford professor of poetry. His poetry offers an insight into his personal, past experiences, which is what many of his poems are based on. Even though he was brought up on a farm in County Derry, he has left the agricultural part of his life behind and devoted it to an academic one. In addition, Robert Frost was an American poet who was born on March 26th 1874. He was educated at Dartmouth college and Harvard university. He became a schoolmaster for a short time and then a farm labourer. He often depicted rural life in his poetry and his work often featured settings from rural life in New England. Frost has also received many awards for his poetry which include four Pulitzer prizes for poetry. The more popular interpretations about ‘The road not taken’ are that it is a poem based on personal choices and rationalizing our own decisions, whether with pride or with regret. The title is interesting because it focuses on opportunities missed rather than opportunities taken. It suggests the poem might be one of regret.   Heaneys’ poem ‘Digging’ is based on his past experiences of growing up on a farm and remembering his father and grandfather digging peat and flower beds. He states he cannot match ‘men like them’ himself with a spade, although believes that for him a pen is mightier and with it he will dig into his past and celebrate his memories. In his poem he also opposes the stereotype of men with spades. Although the stereotype may contain some truth, as Irishmen are well known for digging, he tries to show the...