This definitions covers 📖 Key Terms within Storm on the Island (Heaney) for GCSE English Literature. Revise Storm on the Island (Heaney) in Power and Conflict Poetry for GCSE English Literature with 10 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This is a high-frequency topic, so it is worth revising until the explanation feels precise and repeatable. It is section 14 of 20 in this topic. Make sure you can use the exact wording confidently, because definition marks are often lost through vague language.
📖 Key Terms
- Blank verse
- Lines with a regular five-beat rhythm (iambic pentameter) that do NOT rhyme. Heaney uses it throughout — the measured beat creates the sense of a controlled, experienced voice, which makes the final admission of helplessness more powerful by contrast.
- Simile
- A comparison using “like” or “as.” Heaney’s “spits like a tame cat / Turned savage” uses a domestic animal to make the storm’s sudden violence feel immediate and recognisable.
- Oxymoron
- Two opposite or contradictory words placed together. “Explodes comfortably” joins violent force with domestic ease — Heaney uses the clash to show how the islanders have normalised what is objectively terrifying.
- Semantic field
- A cluster of words drawn from the same area of meaning. Heaney builds a semantic field of military violence (“strafes”, “salvo”, “bombarded”) that positions the storm as an organised assault rather than a weather event.
- Volta
- The “turn” in a poem — the moment the argument shifts direction. In “Storm on the Island”, the volta falls as the cat simile transforms familiar nature into savage threat, pivoting from description of preparation to experience of assault.
Practice questions for Storm on the Island (Heaney)
In **Storm on the Island**, Heaney writes that the wind "strafes invisibly". What does the word **strafes** most directly imply about the wind?
How does Heaney use language choices in **Storm on the Island** to create political subtext? Refer to specific words or phrases in your answer. (2 marks)