Linking Between Carol-Ann Duffy and Shakespeare

The poem ‘Havisham’ by Carol-Ann Duffy, and ‘mid term break’ by Seamus Heaney compare and express similar ideas about loss of life and Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Both Shakespeare and Duffy use many devices to explore how characters react to a loss of life. Juliet’s reaction of ‘beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical love-feather’d raven! Wolvish- ravening lamb!” to Tybalt’s death uses the same device as Havisham when the persona says “ beloved, sweetheart bastard” both of these texts are interesting as they use oxymoron’s. The language choices in both are interesting because they evoke emotions of confusion. The structure of both texts is particularly interesting because both Juliet and the persona in Havisham use positive language then negative language. Alternatively, the reader may think that both characters have undecided emotions about everyone.

In addition both Shakespeare and Heaney use many devices to explore how characters react to a loss of life. Balthasar’s reaction of “her body sleeps in Capel’s monument, and her immortal part with angels lives” to Juliet’s death uses the same device as Heaney when he says “he lay in the four-foot box as in his cot” both of these texts are interesting as they use juxtaposition. The language choices in both are interesting because both Heaney and Shakespeare don’t refer to death they only refer to it as sleeping for example Heaney says ‘four-foot box as in his cot’ and Shakespeare says ‘her body sleeps in capel’s’. Alternatively some people may think Shakespeare and Heaney refer to death as sleep because they can’t deal with the realisation that someone has lost their life.