In Seamus Heaney's “The Forge” we are taken into the speaker's thought process as he imagines the interior of a forge he passes. He begins by describing what is physically visible to him and slowly uses this information to develop an idea of what is happening inside the forge. The speaker uses this imagery of the forge to demonstrate the creative process of poetry. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The speaker uses the darkness and mystery of the forge to illustrate the beginning of the creation process. He begins by describing what he is able to see of the forge which is only a "door into the darkness" (line 1), meaning he cannot actually see what is going on inside the forge. The lack of ability to see can be seen as an example of the way you start writing poetry which is without ideas. The fact that he can only see complete darkness is as if he only sees complete darkness in his mind. However, he then begins to describe the outside of the forge which are common smithing tools such as “old iron boards and hoops” (line 2) which begins to give him an idea of what is inside. This can be seen as the inspiration that can come to a writer at the beginning of his writing as soon after he begins to hear a "short tone sound" (line 3) which is a sound that seems to indicate the beginning of something that in this case it is the forging process but it can also be seen as the beginning of the poetry process. The speaker then describes the “unpredictable ribbon sparks” (line 4) which can be seen as the first brain sparks or the first ideas that come to his brain as ideas are often unpredictable because they can come at any time and from any place . The speaker also uses semicolors and commas between these remarks to show the flow of ideas from one idea to another such as inspiration that occurs in writing. These ideas then begin to develop in the subsequent poetic process. The speaker then continues to imagine the forging process that reflects the development of ideas within the poem. He begins by imagining the "anvil" (line 3) which is a tool for forging but based on the writing we can tell he is using to symbolize a tool in writing. He then infers that "it must be somewhere in the center" (line 6), meaning that it is the core of something, meaning that it is important in one way or another. This thought process can most likely refer to a very important writing tool that is needed to start the whole writing process. This tool can be the writer's imagination as he continues to describe it as “horned like a unicorn” (line 7) and a unicorn is an imaginary animal that can only exist in our imagination. This illustrates the importance of imagination within the writing process and how it must be the most important tool in writing as it is at the heart of it. He then describes this tool as “immobile” (line 8), which once again shows the importance of the tool as it cannot be moved and is there like “an altar” (line 8), once again showing how high in importance this tool since someone on an altar is often someone important. The speaker continues to describe how the forger “spends himself” (line 9), which may be a representation of how a writer spends himself in the creation of writing. This is further supported by the reference to “form and music” (line 9) which in other words is the creation of objects and sounds within the forge. Use these words in place of the sounds and.
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