"Punishment" by Seamus Heaney

In punishment by Seamus Heaney, the author uses diction, and enjambment to underline the feeling of a distant and disconnected intimacy between the speaker and and victim in the poem. The poem itself is about the young women that is found in a peat bog compressed under branches and stones who is naked and was killed for being an adulteress. This alludes to not only the historical finding of a girl in a peat bog that had been there 2,000 years, but also a reference to an adulteress being tied to lampost and being tarred and feather. The two situations were ocmbined into Heaneys punishment.
When reading a peom, you can determine alot about the poem from its structure. The most obvius example of literary structue is enjambment, which is the breaking of clauses between lines of verses(stanzas in this case). This shows the distance between the two, the speaker and the victim, as the broken thoughts between stanzas shows a disregard for intimacy and closeness, and is written in a form of broken thoughts. These breaking of thoughts show the distancing between the two as the speaker is reluctant to break convention and what is a set stencil of the peom for his lover/the adulteress.
Diction is used to not only create intimacy, but also show a distancing between the speaker and the vctim. Intimacy is creatd between the two the the uses of sexual an dintimate word such a nipples, beauty, adulteress(passion), and finally intimacy in the last few lines. This shows that there was some connection between the two and they were close. He also speaks of her in a possesive voice as if she is his. This further highlights the closensess between the two. Diction however also creates a distancing between the two as he almost objectively describes how she was found. He seems to be using a catalouging technique as if he were writing and article about her, thus, as journalists write, he reports the information devoid of emotion.
Seamus Heaney's Punishment has both and intimate and as distanced feel to it. This is created through the diction of the poem and the enjambment of the stanzas. The reasoning for this could but multitudinous. The speaker could have been ashamed for being invloved with an adulteress, and not want to tarnish his name. He could have had his heart broken by the victim and although he hated her for it, he still had a feeling of longing and forlorn for her. All we can deduce is there is an internal struggle on the part of the speaker that is harnessed in the thoughts and feelings captured in the poem.