Commentary on Mid-Term Break

In "Mid-Term Break" Seamus Heaney uses structure and diction to create a bland, sad tone. Through the way Heaney structures his poem he is able to create a sort of narrative feeling, as though the speaker is telling a series of events from his life, with an absence of emotion. His word choice also aids to the narrative format of the poem and bland, sad tone relating to the content within the poem.

Heaney uses a unique structure to create the tone and narrative feeling. He breaks the poem up into 8 stanzas, each 3 lines long until the last line which is only one line. Heaney does this to break the poem up as though it is telling an ongoing story, just as chapters break up a novel into parts of an ongoing series of events. In the structure Heaney does not bring in rhyme scheme until the very last line that he makes rhyme, relating to the death of a young four year old boy to make a very strong impact, though the poem may not contain great description or emotion.

Heaney also uses diction to create a bland, sad tone. His absence of highly descriptive words and adjectives make the tone bland and aid to the narrative aspect of the poem. Though the poem is bland, it is also sad because of some specific words Heaney uses which relate to the actual content of the poem. He uses words such as, "sick", "crying", "funerals", "corpse" and "sighs". Though the poem as a whole is bland and more narrative than connected and full of emotion, these words all relate in some way to a sad, depressing emotion/feeling. In this, Heaney is able to relate the poem to the content, the death of the young boy, and give the poem a bit of a dramatic effect at the end.

In "Mid-Term Break" Seamus Heaney uses structure and diction to create a bland, sad tone. Donne uses unique structure of three line stanzas and specific nondescriptive creating the bland tone as well as words creating the sad tone. Through this, Heaney is able to effectively create a bland yet impactful narrative poem dealing with a tragic loss.