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analyse Seamus heaney's poem "requiem for the croppies"

Seamus Heaney – “Requiem for the Croppies”.

The title:“Requiem for the Croppies”. A requiem is a mass for the dead, in this case that is the “croppies” who were Catholic peasants from rural communities that organized themselves into an army to rebel against their Protestant suppressor. They were named so due to their short, cropped hair in the manner of the French revolutionaries.

Story: The poem is about the defeat of the Croppies at Vinegar hill in 1798- it commemorates their struggle and suggests that something has grown out of their sacrifice.

Structure, Language and Imagery

The poem is written in sonnet form - fourteen lines, although without any division into sections.

The poem uses the past tense. They "moved", they "died", they were "buried", and finally "the barley grew up out of the grave". Heaney never makes these events specific to one person - the style of the poem seems almost deliberate to erase any sense of ind...

Posted by: Sandeep Jador

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