Form and structure
This sonnetA fourteen-line poem, usually with ten syllables in each line. is number seven of eight in an elegiac sequence of sonnets about Seamus Heaney’s mother.
The sequence begins with poems about his mother’s family - in which he describes memories of life with his mother - and ends after her death in 1984.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti said that a sonnet is “a moment’s monument”. This sonnet - about one short incident observed and felt at his mother’s death bed - captures a poignantBringing about a sense of sadness or regret. moment.
The sonnet is written in a typically controlled manner with fourteen decasyllabicA line of verse or a single word consisting of ten syllables. A syllable is an individual part of a word which is pronounced when the word is said aloud. lines.
However, it does not have the traditional structure of the PetrarchanA Petrarchan sonnet is the kind of sonnet used by the Italian poet Petrarch. A Petrarchan sonnet has a rhyme scheme. or ShakespeareanA Shakespearean sonnet is the variation of the sonnet form used by William Shakespeare. A Shakespearean sonnet has a rhyme scheme. sonnet. It is a blank sonnet with no formal rhyme.
The tightly controlled form therefore is striking in that it seems to contrast with the intense personal emotion it is used to convey.
As with many traditional sonnets there is a turn - or volta - in the eighth line of the poem.
The first section of the sonnet concerns the speaker’s father’s interactions with his wife. But in line eight in a very abrupt “Then she was dead”, the speaker’s mother dies.