Talk:Heaney/@comment-119.17.57.66-20160510045120

Critique 2 makes the suggestion that Heaney's facination with death is inspired by the death of his brother. However the inference could be made that outside of 'Mid Term Break' Heaney presents a romantic view of death that is a departure from the realism evident in 'Mid Term Break. Furthermore, it could be suggested that the allusion to 'a four foot box' hides the finality and brutality of death, preseting an idealised view. Heaney's romanticisation of death is particularly evident in 'Requim For Croppies.' Heaney shies away from commenting on the brutality of death, hinting at its transformative qualities and the possibility that death can position an individual as a 'faceless' martyr. The speaker within the poem is able to live on within the conscience of Ireland, both inspiring and sustaining the irish narrative, through 'barley [that] grew up out of the grave.' In the reality of Heaney's poetry death is not a concrete finality but rather an abstract cycle of perpetual life and death, breeding life and death.