Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

Phonological Analysis

Personal Response

• Sibilants
• Use of long vowels

Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him for the first time in six weeks. (line 17-19)

• Should be read slowly and quietly
• To create a feeling of tranquility
• To depict a serene and peaceful environment surrounding his dead brother

• Alliteration

A four-foot box, a foot for every year. (line 23)

• *Metaphor
• Stress on each syllable
• A shame for losing someone so young

Free verse

• From the title to the end of the poem, the sorrow of a little boy's death is thoroughly revealed

• Unfortunate and emotional

• Completely different from my expectation

• Contrasts within the poem

• Eight stanzas in total
• No consistent metre
• No regular rhyme scheme

Graphological Analysis

Lexical Analysis

• Lexicology
• Phonology
• Graphology

Phonological Analysis

Discussion

• Enjambments across stanzas

By old men standing up to shake my hand (Line 10)

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble," (Line 11)

Away at school, as my mother held my hand (line 13)

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs (line 14)

For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, (Line 19)

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, (line 20)

• Contrast to the first two stanzas which end with full stops
• Run-on sentences imitating the overloaded information Heaney found it hard to contain
• Unexpected and shocking news

knelling (line 3): funeral bell ringing

• To foreshadow something terrible happened
• Suspension created

He had always taken funerals in his stride (line 6): to take funerals in one's stride

• Heaney's dad had never been bothered by funerals before
• Contrast to "In the porch I met my father crying" (line 5)
• To dramatise his dad's agony

What do you think of the title "Mid-Term Break"?

How does it help us interpret the poem?

• Alliteration

Counting bells knelling classes to a close (line 3):

• To imitate the clinking sound of the bell ringing
• Interrupted by a non alliterative c sound - knelling
• Something unusual occurred

About Mid-Term Break

• Selected from Death of a Naturalist (1966)

• Dedicated to his brother, Christopher, who was killed in a car accident at the age of four when Heaney was studying in a boarding school

• "The Blackbird of Glanmore" in District and Circle (2006)

Graphological Analysis

Seamus Heaney Reading Mid-Term Break

Lexical Analysis

poppy bruise (line 20):

• Dark red
• Flower of remembrance

the bumper knocked him clear (line 22):

• Metonymy
• His brother was killed in a car accident

Stanza 3:

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram (line 8)

Stanza 4:

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble," (line 11)

Stanza 5:

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. (line 14)

• The beginnings of each stanza are deliberately designed to highlight the tragedy

coughed out angry tearless sighs (line 14):

coughed out:

• To emphasise the difficulty of his mum in letting out frustration

angry:

• Being mad at herself / the party responsible

tearless sighs:

• To stress on his mum's torment

the corpse (line 16):

• His brother's dead body
• Depassionate
• Distant relationship implied

About Seamus Heaney

• 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013 (aged 74)

• An Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer

• Awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature

• Remarkable works include Death of a Naturalist (1966), Field Work (1979), District and Circle (2006) and more

Vivianne LO Yu Ting