Similarities Between Before You Were Mine And Seamus Heaney

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Before You Were Mine by Carol Ann Duffy and Mid Term Break by Seamus Heaney portray the emotion of losing someone in very different ways. In the poem Before You Were Mine, Duffy frames the time element in a way which makes her relive her mother’s old memories. She cleverly uses poetic devices to bring out the glamour of the teenage years or the time preceding her birth. Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney deals with the tragic death of his four year old brother, and the emotional response of his family. It is a tremendously poignant poem and its emotional power obtains large measure from the fact that Heaney is very muted and understated with respect to his own emotional response. The poem comprises of four stanzas, five lines each containing a lot of visual imagery which is appropriate for a poem inspired by a …show more content…

Like Duffy, Heaney has structured his poem effectively to bring out death. The poem is an iambic pentameter comprising seven equal triplets with a single-line stanza. As a result, the poem echoes with the speech of a dying person or one that is in grief. The single lined stanza at the end not only heightens the feeling of ‘loss’ but also has an emotional impact on the reader. It also signifies a disturbed setting. The lack of rhyme scheme and the use of multiple enjambment slow down the pace of the poem reflecting the unhurried mourning of a loved one. The elegy is written in chronological order, starting from “two o’clock” , “ten o’clock” and then “six weeks later” listing the activities of his brother’s cremation which highlights that Heaney was very disturbed as he remembered the timings with precision. People do not forget the day or the time when something really tragic occurs, it becomes an engraved part of their life. Heaney does not talk about his feelings and remains muted throughout the poem, but the fact that he remembers it so vividly tells us that the tragic experience has scarred

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