·
Loss of Childhood Innocence:
Heaney’s
first collection, “Death of a Naturalist”, concentrated primarily on his need
to write about his childhood, and the loss of his childhood innocence as he
steps into manhood. As in the poem Death of a Naturalist, he talks about that
change of the child’s perspective, his world and its inhabitants. He destroys
the balance of nature and fails to appreciate fully its beauty.
·
Desire to know the World:
Heaney
uses his poetry as a tool to understand and qualify his experiences, whether
they are of nature, of his childhood, or of the events unfolding around him in
Ireland. He uses analogies with buried objects, not in an attempt to appear
erudite, but in order to better understand the events of the Troubles. In a
time when reason and logic fail, when people are killed arbitrarily, simply
because they belong to a different religion than the “right” one, a man of
letters attempts to make sense of the world around him; and he chooses poetry
as his medium.
·
History- The Major Theme:
Seamus
Heaney has written about historical events in several of his poems. Some, like “At a Potato Digging” and “Requiem for the Croppies” had an
overtly historical theme, describing a specific event in Irish history. Others
like “Funeral Rites”, “The Tollund Man” and
“Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces” include
some reference to Ireland’s past.
At A Potato Digging, refers to the
terrible famine in Ireland between 1945-8,
when several thousand people died as a result of the failure of the potato
crop, Ireland’s staple food. In his poem, he brings out the suffering of the
people of Ireland, and effectively analogizes the present experience of the
farmers with that of the 1800s. On one hand, the poem is a memorial to those
who died in the famine, on the other it reminds the reader of the hardships the
present-day farmers have to go through, and creates an image of them paying
homage to the earth in an effort to appease her.
In The Tollund Man for instance, he links
the death of certain youth to the sacrificial killings in Jutland. In North, he
looks to the Viking past of Ireland to resolve the conflict with himself, and
reconcile himself to the “troubles”.
In Funeral Rites, he suggests that looking
back into the pagan origins of the Irish past would yield permanent solutions
to its problems of its troubled present.
Requiem for the Croppies is a poem
commemorating the Battle of Vinegar Hill 1978 and the rebels who died. Ho not
only takes the reader through the emotions and thoughts of the narrator, one of
the rebels, he also foretells the seeds in the pockets of the dead rebels as
the germ of further revolutions in future years.
Heaney
writes history for the ordinary people of his country, so he uses language and
imagery that they can identify with. He uses a ballad technique, which suit the
themes and images that he is working with, images of the countryside. Heaney
uses his poetry as a medium for bringing out the struggle and difficulties of
farmers and peasants on a daily basis, also pays tribute to their achievement.
He puts great reliance on the importance of past-history on understanding
present events. In order to fully comprehend, and find a solution for, the
troubles ailing Ireland, Heaney resort to the wisdom of the past, relying on
objects unearthed from the bog to provide him with answers.
·
Heaney’s Symbolism:
Heaney
uses symbolic figures with the zeal of an archaeologist, elated as he uncovers
each new explanation or theory, just as an archaeologist discovers objects to
help him find new definitions for the past.
The
poet uses his figures, not to give a solution to the Irish conflict, but rather
expression to the conflict within him. The figures of the past seem to
empathize with him, giving words and feelings to what he cannot or does not
express.
·
Heaney’s Art of Writing:
Many
of Heaney’s poems discuss the art of writing. In his first volume, “Death of a
Naturalist”, he discusses the theme extensively in poems like Digging and Personal Helicon.
In
Digging, Heaney attempts to
reconcile his farming background with his desire to write, and describes his
choice to tool as powerful a weapon as any, “as snug as gun”. He determines to
use this tool to search for ideas and explore his roots. Digging is often
compared in theme and approach to Ted
Hughes’ poem Thought-Fox, which
explores the craft or writing, from a blank page to the finished piece. Personal Helicon makes the reader aware
that the poet is only just ready to leap into the experience of writing and
exploring, and that he has a long way to go. His one sense of comfort is the
sense of unity and identity he spreads to his fellow Catholics through the
medium of his poetry, and possibly one of his greater contributions as a poet
as well.
·
Attention to Detail:
Past
of the reason why Heaney’s poetry touches the chord of with so any people, is
his close attention to detail in his descriptive poems, he paints a convincing
portrait depicting in minute detail the daily lives and surroundings of his
subject.
Like
a photographer, he zooms in on his subjects capturing the details of their
worlds or their surroundings. In “A
Constable Calls”, he describes in details the policeman’s bicycle his cap
and even the sweet stain on his forehead. In his manner, the reader feels as if
he is watching visual rather than reading a poem and the impact of his poem is
therefore that much stronger.
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