Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)
Some Biographical/Historical Notes:
(1) Born in North Ireland to a Roman Catholic family.
(2) Northern Ireland (created in 1921) is ruled by British Protestants, it is still one of the four countries of the UK, while Southern Ireland is Roman Catholic and is the homeland of the Irish (i.e. the Irish Republic). Heaney moved from Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic in 1972, becoming a citizen and writer there. He identifies with the Irish as a people and nation, and has attemped to show this throughout his poetry. In the North, two political groups exist: the Unionists (who consider themselves British) and the Nationalists (who consider themselves Irish and wish to form one unified Ireland).
(3) Won the Nobel Prize in 1995.
(4) “The Troubles:” Eruption of violence in Northern Ireland from 1969 (many complicated struggles between the Unionists against the Nationalists) until 1998 when the Belfast Agreement was signed
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(5) Heaney believes that poets had a responsibility to write about the dead in order to allow them to continue inside the memories of the living.
(6) He writes in a very accessible style, and is loved by both the Irish and British public.
(7) His style ranges from free verse to more traditional style, as is seen in “Clearances.”
Some notes on the Poetry:
(1) “Digging”
-He seems to focus on local surroundings and the everyday.
– Also the attention paid to his culture/heritage should remind you of Tony Harrison who also came from a common working class background, and wrote about his heritage. This poem also deals with inheritance, what we gain from our parents and our ancestors. The introduction at the beginning serves to display the idea of poetry “as an archaeological process of recovery” one in which Heaney literally “digs” inside his memory.
(2) In poems such as “The Grauballe Man” and “Punishment,” we notice how violence enters inside poetic verse. Heaney used violence within his verses in order to re-enact the atrocities he witnessed during “the Troubles.” These poems deal a lot with the memory of violence and the trauma of witnessing.
(3)“Clearances”
– a beautiful poem written by Heaney after his mother’s death. It is an elegiac sequence of eight sonnets, purposely structured. What do you think Heaney, who wrote many of his poems in free verse, chose to structure this one so closely?
– Heaney wrote many “elegies” of this sort. Think about other elegies we have read in this class. Again the comparison to Harrison must be made since he too writes the poem “Book Ends” and “Long Distance” in a similar elegiac style. “Daffodils,” by Ted Hughes, is another poem which comes to mind, especially in trying to think about death and memory (two themes we continue to encounter in this class).
– In this poem Heaney begins to deconstruct the fabric of his past, speaking of his great-grandmother on his mother’s side, and then moving to his own memories of his mother. Simple everyday objects are described, the sheet, the potatoes being peeled, the candles and the copy of Sons and Lovers. This is not a philosophical interpretation of his mother’s death, but rather a simple, everyday account of their private and public moments.
Thoughts: We have read three Irish authors in the this class: Yeats, Joyce, and now Heaney. For our purposes we can say that Yeats is the “tradition setter” for Irish poetry. How does Heaney pay tribute to Yeats? Does he? What about Joyce? All three of them wrote about Irish nationalism in some sort of way. Where do they disagree? How can you apply the postcolonial theories (langauge-based theories) we read last week to the Irish cause? How does each author strive to preserve their Irish culture and heritage inside their work? Why?
Potential Themes for the Essay
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thekvexperience
The Modernist Circle 