Strongman by Tony Curtis and Mid-term break by Seamus Heaney :: English Literature

Strongman by Tony Curtis and Mid-term work by Seamus Heaney dealwith the subject expiry of a family member. Comp atomic number 18 both poems showinghow the poets introduce their subjects. Which poem did you prefer andwhy?One of the poets, Tony Curtis, is Welsh, whilst, Seamus Heaney isIrish. Seamus Heaney has grown up on a farm in Northern Ireland withhis br opposites and his parents. The whole family has taken on the familybusiness of farming, while Seamus Heaney received an education. Bothpoets are still alive today.These two poems describe the deaths of a family member. The Mid-termbreak is the tragic death of Heaneys four-year-old brother and thepoem progresses over twenty-four hours. Strongman is describing theauthors strong, caring father who dies naturally in his final hour.While the Mid-Term Break had an ill-chosen and devastating mood theStrongman has a more positive out savour on the family members deathas it looks back into the younger, happier times. There are a fewoth er comparisons that can be made, whilst the Mid-Term Break is adeath that shocked battalion, the Strongman was a peaceful and easy toaccept death.In this essay I intend to look at the differences and similarities inthe poems.The first poem I intend to discuss is Mid-Term Break by SeamusHeaney. The title Mid-Term Break suggests the poem is about childrenas we have-to doe with a mid-term break with school holidays. Other firstimpressions given in this poem relate to poor health or death. Werelate to this due to the riding habit of nouns such as sick bay and adverbsdescribing school bells as knelling. This could also be reflectingthe emotions of the child in the sick bay at this point we are notsure.The structure is interesting, because at first glance we see that ithas a regular pattern to it, which are three lines to each stanza.This possibly implies that the events that take fix in the poem arepredictable. However, the final line is a stanza on its own, drawingyou to it and crea ting a large impact on the audience.In the second stanza an inept atmosphere and tone is introduced. Thepoet meets his father crying this is one of the factors that makethis stanza awkward. Men in the days when this poem was written (1966)were stereotypically thought of as strong people emotionally andphysically, therefore, for the young poet to see his father crying onthe porch would have made him feel uneasy. Furthermore, the dash atthe end if each line causes the lines to return as one sentence, this is