Most Alliteration In Mid-Term Break By Seamus Heaney

In Midterm Break, Heaney reflects on the memory of his younger brother’s death, and returning home for his funeral. The poem as a whole has an overall

Example from the book – One example of an allusion from the book is when they talk about dauntless and that dauntless values courage “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Another technique this poem takes use of is alliteration. The alliteration used helps to express the themes importance through repletion of sound devices. A specific example of alliteration

Alliteration was also evident throughout the poem in the first line of the first stanza when he said “ south of the bridge on seventeenth”(Stafford, page 805, stanza 1). The alliteration is “south” and “seventeenth” because both words start with an “S”.

Alliteration is defined as the repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables. It is a literary device that authors use to bring attention to certain important ideas or concepts in stories. Alliterations allow the reader to bring their senses together to hear and feel what they are reading by bring in sounds of the world around us into literate. This helps the reader visualize the story, therefore helping the reader to remember it. It is used in many stories as a way to hide metaphors and other subliminal messages. For example, alliterations with the 's' being the prominent sound could be visualized as a snake slithering, making a character have a slyness about him. Specifically in Anglo-Saxon literature, alliteration is significant because it is how authors organized their poems or stories, includes repetition which aids memorization, and emphasizes important parts of the text that the author wants the audience to know. Alliteration in important in both “The Wanderer” and “The Wife’s Lament” because it helps evoke certain emotions and feelings by using the different functions of alliterative language.

There is alliteration in the stanzas of 3 and 6 “blade beak” and claws clutching”. This poem also has a rhythm to it; the stanzas are not constructed in that unbalanced way in which it’s hard to keep flowing feel to the literature.

A poem which explores the feeling of loss is ‘Visiting Hour’ by Norman MacCaig. In this powerful and moving poem, the writer uses techniques such as imagery, symbolism and word choice to effectively grip the reader and keeps them with him throughout the poem.

First element that Heaney uses is diction, it is simple but effective. Diction is word choice, or the style of speaking that a writer, speaker, or character uses. For instance at the end of the poem he says “Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests. / I’ll dig with it” (Heaney 29-31). The diction he uses is simple but it is effective in proving his point of view that he won’t dig with a shovel but instead he’ll use a pen.

A word that follows another word with the same consonant sounds is alliteration. Alliteration is used quite often in poetry as it helps create a certain tone or mood for a poem. Words that use alliteration are effective as it uses sound to bring focus to specific parts of a poem that are vital in making an idea or an emotion known. The use of alliteration is very clever as it is a simple trick authors use to grab a reader’s attention and help readers understand what they are trying to say. Edgar Allen Poe uses alliteration quite often in his poem “The Raven” to create a somber and ominous mood. Poe uses phrases like “weak and weary” and “doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before” to emphasize the darkness of the poem. The alliteration used also gives readers a sense that nothing good will come at the end of “The Raven” as the phrases that use alliteration are dreary and unwelcoming.

“In the Loop” by Bob Hicok and “Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heaney are comparable in terms of their symbolic titles, speaker’s perspective, and tragic themes. These two poems diverge only in their physical structure, as neither has rhyme nor meter.

Rhyming, alliteration and repetition are all used to create an atmosphere for the poem so that it is evocative for the reader.

As the speaker casually calls their parents, a setting of calm expectations is established. While greeting the speaker, the mother’s decision to “run out and get” (1) the father highlights the lack of urgency that is present. The mother is calm and fetches the father in an expected and relaxed fashion, further establishing the calm expectations of the ongoing call. The mother additionally states that “the weather here’s so good” (2). Heaney’s use of the word “good” reflects the setting of the mother and father’s home; the atmosphere of where they live is pleasant and unperturbed. The “weather” serves as a projection of the father’s own state, implying that the father is in good health and that death is not yet looming over him. The last spoken words in the poem reveal that the father was conducting “a bit of weeding” (3). The word “weeding” highlights the capability of the

This poignant dichotomy is seen explicitly in two poems in Seamus Heaney’s Field Work. One poem, “The Strand at Lough Beg” is written for “Heaney’s cousin Colum McCartney (ambushed and shot in a sectarian killing)” and is rich with pastoral scenery, dark tones, and religious imagery (Vendler 60). Another poem, “A Postcard from North Antrim” is about “his friend the social worker Sean Armstrong (shot by a ‘pointblank teatime bullet’)” (Vendler 60). These two elegies, both with a strong presence of Heaney’s personal voice, are imbued with a sort of ambiguity as Heaney struggles with the death of two people who were both very close to him. In both poems, Heaney “tries to converse with and question the dead” in an attempt to rationalize, or at least display his sentiments on the untimely deaths (Parker 159). It is interesting to watch Heaney oscillate in imagery, tone and diction as he progresses through both poems. This wavering can be seen as a result of Heaney’s background.

as if this act of touching for a second time sparks off a series of

Throughout the poem and particularly in the first stanza, Heaney uses a wide range of literary devices such as intense imagery or sensory imagery, exceptionally meaningful metaphors and alliteration.