Seamus Heaney
Heaney’s poetry has cultivated worldly, cosmopolitan views with the relics of the Northern Irish landscape, rural life, Irish history and contemporary Northern Irish politics. He has been fascinated by his culture and civilization of the past and through his poetry, Heaney has revived his past and he has kept it alive. As a poet, Heaney put great reliance on the importance of past history in understanding present events. In order to fully comprehend and find a solution for the troubles ailing Ireland, Heaney resorts to the wisdom of the past.
Mid-Term Break
Mid-Term Break was written on 25th February 1963, the 10th anniversary of the death of the poet's brother, Christopher who died on 25th February 1953. Reference 'Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney'. The poem first appeared in print the following month in 'The Kilkenny Magazine', Spring 1963. It was published in Death of a Naturalist (1966) as part of a collection of poems. The work consists of 34 short poems and is largely concerned with childhood experiences and the formulation of adult identities, family relationships, and rural life.
-One of a couple of poems that were influenced by Heaney’s brother’s death
-Representative of ‘Naturalism’
-Details of rural, parochial life
Funeral Rites
Part of North,a collection of poems (1975) that was the first of his works that directly dealt with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and it looks frequently to the past for images and symbols relevant to the violence and political unrest of that time.The poem “North” invokes one of the volume’s primary symbols—the Viking raiders who invaded Ireland between 795 and 980. The volume title also suggests these northern raiders, the bog bodies found in Northern Europe, and most significantly, the North of Ireland.
-Three poems joined /sections – death and burial (ceremony), Natural causes, Death through sectarian conflict, Myth and Legend (associated with death)
-Representative of ‘Sectarian’ conflict (specifically in his own country Ireland)
-People, history and landscape brought together
-Also representative of poems that incorporated the memories of Scandinavian and English invasions that have marked Irish history
Requiem for the Croppies
"Requiem for the Croppies" is based on a battle in the rebellion of 1798 in the Irish county of Wexford. Over 10,000 Irish rebels and their families were massacred, and many bodies were desecrated, including that of a priest.Written in 1966, on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. Printed in the collection of poems Door into The Dark, 1969.Whilst there is a theme of violence that has plagued Ireland in his poetry, and the relationship between the Irish and the land is a central theme in his later poetry, there is a slight detachment in these type of poems..
-Representative of ‘Fatalism’ - view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do.
-One of Heaney’s poems that creates an event that he attributes to fate.
-Representative of poems that are a tribute to the Irish and those who have lost their lives.
-Paints a historical picture through imagery and juxtaposition, without being over-sentimental.