Discuss the ways in which these poets explore the universal themes of grief and loss. (Seamus Heaney’s ‘Mid-Term Break’ and Ben Johnson’s ‘On My First Sonne’.
In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting the two poems ‘Mid-Term Break’ by Seamus Heaney and ‘On My First Sonne’ by Ben Johnson. I will be focusing on their elegaic qualities aswell as their universal themes of grief and loss. ‘Mid-Term Break’ is about the aftermath of Seamus Heaney’s 4 year old brother’s tragic death and how his family and friends express their emotions and cope with the sudden loss. Whereas the 17th Century poet, Ben Johnson is writing to express his sorrow for the death of his 7 year old son dealing with his feelings of loss rather than thinking about the reasons for the death or the effects of this on the rest of the family. These are the intended effects they both have which I will be exploring and I shall be outlining reasons for this aswell in the rest of this essay including the interesting poetic devices and structure Ben Johnson and Seamus Heaney use and how they are similar and different from each other. ‘On My First Sonne’ was published on the year 1616 and is therefore more religiously based as at that time life was dominated by religious views. ‘Mid-Term Break’ was published in the 1980s so this will help me analyse the views of the 20th Century in comparison to the 17th Century and this is a main area I will be focusing on after an in-depth analysis of the intended effects of these poets when writing their poems.
‘On My First Sonne’ has a different intended effect overall in comparison to ‘Mid-Term Break’. One of the main reasons for this is that Ben Johnson is writing as a literal attempt to reach out to his son to say his final farewell with lines such as ‘Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say here doth lye’ which makes it seem that Johnson is communicating with his son. Seamus Heaney’s poem is more of a narrative describing what happened on the day of his four year old brother’s sudden death. In my opinion it seems as if Seamus Heaney is sharing his experience with other people who may have suffered in the same way and is exploring the emotions of more than just his own. To exemplify this point, on lines 4 and 5 it says ‘I met my father crying – He had always taken funerals in his stride.’ This contrasts between ‘On My First Sonne’ and ‘Mid-Term Break’ on two levels, the first being that Ben Johnson has only included his own feelings in this poem such as on line 2 which says ‘My sinne was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy’ This has the effect that his poem is private between him and his son and is like a one-sided conversation. Whereas ‘Mid-Term Break’ has a different intended audience altogether, I know this because the style of Heaney’s poem is a first-person point of view in the format of a story and there are more emotions and feelings described including his parents and family members’ aswell as friends. By analysing the poetic voice and intent I can confidently make an opinion that ‘Mid-Term Break’ elegizes Heaney’s loss of his brother and ‘On My First Sonne’ is a lamentation for the loss of Johnson’s son.
