Seamus Heaney's Requiem for the Croppies

Amanda Burns
English 150
Wednesday 16 October 2013, 6 p.m. section

• Recite poem
• Discussion
• What stands out in the poem?
  • war imagery
  • blunt words that cut to the chase
• What is the poem about?
  • 1798 Rebellion
  • British victory
  • British lack of respect for Irish people
  • Irish farming and the culture that stems from living off the land
  • Human respect for the dead
• How does diction set the tone for the poem?
  • requiem, grave = death
  • priest lay behind = religion behind us
  • hardly marching = apathetic
  • all those terms connotate hopelessness
  • barley (at beginning and end of poem) = full circle of life and British rule

* I will just need the chalkboard to write the questions up on, but I don't need handouts printed out. I will just facilitate discussion and if it starts to slow down, I'll prompt people with the answers to discussion questions I just wrote up here.