What are the attitudes of the poets towards death and how do they use language to convey these views? Heaney and Donne

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Thomas Redman                07/05/2007

What are the attitudes of the poets towards death and how do they use language to convey these views?  

The first of the two poems ‘Mid-Term Break’ written by Seamus Heaney is about a boy who is taken out of school to attend his younger brothers funeral. This poem shows death as a traumatic experience. On the other hand the second poem ‘Death Be Not Proud’ by John Donne looks upon death as a means to a greater end and if you have faith then you will live forever and conquer death.

The title of Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Mid-Term Break’ can be interpreted in many different ways. It can be seen as a literal title a break in the middle of term. This is ironic because when you think of a mid-term break you think of going on holiday and having fun, not going to your younger brother’s funeral. Also the word break could mean the break up of a family or the heartbreak of losing somebody. Where as the title of John Donne’s poem ‘Death Be Not Proud’ can only be seen in one way: that’s as an instruction to death telling him or her not to be proud.

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The main similarity between the two poems is the fact that both have a common subject, which is death. But each poem interprets death in a different way. Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Mid-Tern Break’ looks at death as a tragic, sad and angry time: ‘I met my farther crying’ this shows it must be an especially sad time because it is unusual for grown men to cry. But ‘Death Be Not Proud’ is about how death does not have any power over man kind. Donne personalises death, telling him ‘Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, Kings, and desperate men.’ Death ...

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