Question- How would you visualize Seamus Heaney as a poet?

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Discuss Seamus Heaney as a poet with special reference to themes and techniques of his poetry.

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Seamus Heaney as a Poet

Seamus Heaney is one of the most powerful and sensitive poet to emerge in modern times.

Poetry as a Weapon: Heaney uses metaphor in his first collection of poems, the idea of poetry as a weapon. In the poem Digging he uses simile: A simile make use of 'like' and 'as

Heaney makes a difficult choice, choosing poetry instead of farming and in process of doing so, he alienated himself from his family. Recognizing this paradox, his first collection make extensively use of figures of speech (metaphors) which transforms writer's communication tool into a weapon. He puts weapon to a number of uses: laying down ghosts of his past, recording the death of the naturalist in him. He is creating space for himself and space to view things objectively as a poet to be able to view things in perspective.

Heaney as an Irish Poet: Some critics have placed Heaney in a difficult and no-win situation. Heaney have also been accused of his over- involvement in the matter of Ulster. 'Casualty', a poem talks about tribal warfare in Ireland. The theme of the 'Casualty' poem is the killing of the catholic friend for opposing curfew by Provisional IRA. Heaney questioning his dead friend's act makes us realise the near-erasel of line denoting right and wrong situation in Ireland. Heaney's work usually portrays death and dying. His tender elegies serve many purposes, from mourning great losses to recalling solace from those who remain with us. It is easy to get impression that Heaney is a provincial poet, but he is not only concerned with his birthplace. 'Song' explores his poetic process.

Language and Diction: In 'Death of a Naturalist' Heaney conveys his love for his homeland through his unique use of language.

He uses strong, decisive language, never hesitating or rambling. His words take on the character of the setting, helping the reader familiarise himself with the surroundings, as the poet weaves the atmosphere.

The first collection of verse gives an impression of the poet discovering a new world which can be captured through the clever use of his pen. He uses devices like alliteration, assonation and onomatopoeia, recapturing the noises and silences of his home.

The range of sounds he is able to create is remarkable, "The spade sinks into gravely ground" the "clean rasping" noise the spade makes is evoked by the alliteration of the "s" and "g".

Heaney always searches for the precise combination of sounds that will capture the scene described by him.

Poet as Observer: An an observer Heaney keeps a distance from his family creating a stance of remoteness and tight control in his poems. In family poems like Follower, Digging and Mid-term Break carefully describes the son's accounting his father's diminishing strength or the way in which the boy record's his brother's funeral. In these and other family poem, Heaney acted as an passive observer. In poem 'Digging', poet is watching while his father digging underneath the window or the poet staring at his own brother's coffins etc. marked the occurances of his passive observing. Heaney's poems have a very visual effect; he let the words speak for him, conjuring up a series of images, like a motion picture.

Emotion in his Poems: Traditionally, image of a poet is a soppy one,' however with Heaney, scene is quite different. He belongs to different breed of poets whose wider range of emotions excluding love runs on paper. In all his poems about family, he remains aloof, disconnected. Emotions including love or friends remained barred in his poems. Even when Heaney portrays different aspects of married life, love, lust, happiness do not make an appearance in his works. In poem 'Wedding Day', he portrays a series of surreal, nightmarish images and poses frightening internalised questions which culminate in confused flight. Only one kind of love made appearance in his works. His love for his land, home and country.

The joy he displays in himself as a child, his unparalleled love and joy for nature and his homeland disregards any other form of emotions. In his works, Heaney write about his motherland with passion, acutely awares of his motherland's problems, raises questions in the minds of reader but not once he talks about his feelings clearly.

Attention to Detail : Like a photographer who zooms in and identifies the object, often looking at the same object from different angles, Heaney zeroes in on his target, examinating it from all possible angles, recording vivid details that transform his words into photographs.

"Death of a Naturalist" is a detailed, rich portrait of Heaney's childhood world, Mossbawn. The poems are filled with colours, smells, tastes and experiences. He describes everything, even the frogspawn, vividly, with a child's wide-eyed wonder, natural charm, and even sometimes fear.

His attention to detail is remarkable, minutely observing the people and their places of work, that he describes richly.

His keen eye seeks out the signs of expertise - his father's "coarse boot nestled on the lug" of the spade, his grandfather "nicking and slicing neatly" at the turf. Like a film-maker he covers the scene before and after the event, leaving the reader with a fuller, more complete picture and we transform from reader's to audiences under Heaney's expert guidance.

Bogland as a Poetic Metaphor: Ever since he played as a child in a moss-hole, Heaney realised that the bog is a repository of memories of his childhood.

He realised that the history of his country lay beneath the boglands. The poem which contains all these ideas Bogland is placed last in the volume "Door into the Dark", but it acts as a key describing Heaney's voyage of discovery.

He wrote several bog poems - punishment, Tollund Man, Bogland. In Tollund Man, Heaney was attempting to find his own solution to the problems in Ulster.

Just as Heaney believed that Ireland's history lay beneath the bog, he also began to use the bog to project her future. The eerie, almost nightmarish images described in his poems portrend the nightmare descending on the people. The bog people have now become symbols of the voilence in Ulster.

The poet seems to be facinated by the bog people and uses reverential tone with them and records everything about them.

Interestingly, the more Heaney attempts to escape from his own feelings of guilt and divided loyalty, the more they force him to contemplate and examine his feelings about the Ulster situation. Almost like unwanted memories, they recur over and over. The result is a deepening of the negative .impulses haunting the poems. Heaney writes brutally honest descriptions of his feelings about the situation, having finally resolved it. The Catholic in him surges up, and almost rejoices in the atrocities committed against the Protestants.

A Sense of Divided Loyalty: Heaney wrote about farm life and issues that intrigued him till 1969, he rarely contributed articles in London Magazine as these articles were written in times when something major event unfolds in that area. But things changed by 1972, after seeing student politics in Berkeley, he returned to Irish Republic. Returning to Irish Republic has lesser to do with student's politics but more with Heaney's sense of confusion and divided sense of loyalty. His loyalty deepens to both England and Irish Republic as well. He felt indebted to England, as England made him what he is today. On the other hand, the very same Britishers captured and destroyed his homeland denied him the berthright of Gaelic poetic tradition as well. Heaney felt betrayed, defeated in speaking English language though.

Heaney is also plagued with moral dilemma. On one hand, he sympathises the school who wanted to destroy protest and supremacy. He felt a sense of loyalty, patroitism etc. On the other hand Heaney is also a writer, an educated man could not advocate voilence, lack of humanity or reason. This dilemma tored him apart and his conscience burdened with the guilt of sufferings of his fellow catholics. All this instances, garnered him the title - Poet of the Titles' and all these occurences showed his sense of divided loyalty.

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