Thematic Patterns in the work of Seamus Heaney

The nature of an artist’s work is often founded on their personality, which is, in turn, generated by their context and experiences. The works themselves are often specifically inspired by deeply affecting and meaningful elements within the artist’s personal perspective. From the forthright horror displayed by Picasso and Goya (notably in Guernica and The Disasters of War¹ series) at war in Spain to the political commentary on the U.S.S.R. and other contemporary conflict zones present in the work of Pratchett and Orwell (Jingo / Monstrous Regiment and 1984 / Animal Farm²) there is evidence of thematic patterns founded on the strongest contextual themes present in the creator’s life in the works of the majority of artists. The poetry of Seamus Heaney demonstrates these patterns and, more than this, it demonstrate the effect an artist’s context can have on their thematic focii and how these focii develop in a linear way as the personality of the artist develops.

In his speech Crediting Poetry ^c1 (given to the assembled at the Nobel Prize acceptance gathering) Heaney said:

“When I was the eldest child...we crowded together in three rooms...and lived a kind of den life which was more or less emotionally and intellectually proofed against the outside world. It was an intimate, physical, creaturely existence... We took in everything that was going on, of course...but we took it in as if we were in the doze of hibernation. Ahistorical, pre-sexual, in suspension...”^c1

His first and, to some extent, second & third books³ of poetry mirrored this sentiment. They were deeply given to introspection, containing works such as “Digging”, “Death of a Naturalist”, “At a Potato Digging” and “Storm on the Island”. These works, along with others such as “Midterm Break”, “Personal Helicon”, “The Early Purges” and “Blackberry-Picking” are aimed at examining himself, his past, his personal motivations and the ramifications of his poetry. In his poem “Follower” and particularly in lines such as “...But today/It is my father who keeps stumbling/Behind me, and will not go away.”, Heaney deals with his past, the influences of his family and his inability to remove himself from his personal experiences in order to write:

“I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow around the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away. “

He also examines the effect his ambition, his childhood dream (“I wanted to grow up and plough/To close one eye, stiffen my arm.”), has on his life and his work, coming to the conclusion that, because he aspired to the same position as his father, he can not shake of the concepts that went with that position, and further, concepts that were imbued in his father – stolidness, strength, masculinity and even a touch of insensitivity, always a burden for a poet. This theme of self examination is continued throughout his work – especially in his earlier poetry.

In his more mature poetry, like his contemporary Robert Bly, Heaney was deeply affected by the political climate (both past and present) of his mother country (in the case of Bly, The U.S., and Heaney, Ireland). Unlike Bly however Heaney “seems hardly to have worked at becoming a political poet”^c2. It seems to be something that was almost forced upon him by his context – a Catholic growing up in Derry in Northern Ireland whilst a civil war raged around him. Heaney struggles not to take sides and not to allow his poetry to be seen as propaganda for either side – he attempts to maintain “a balance of craft and discourse”^c2. He achieves this, in poems such as “Casualty”, “From the Frontier of Writing” and “The Early Purges”, by laying blame for the wanton destruction of “The Troubles” equally on both sides – loyalist and republican. For example, in “Casualty” (a memento mori for a friend killed by a paramilitary organisation during The Troubles):

But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone held
His breath and trembled.

the lines - “He was blown to bits/Out drinking in a curfew/Others obeyed,” - attack the anti-British paramilitary groups such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA)^c3 for destroying an innocent life – a man who dared to defy their edict prohibiting visiting a certain hotel on the night of the reprisals. However, in the very next line Heaney attacks the British paratroops & the loyalist paramilitaries - “After they shot dead/The thirteen men in Derry./PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,/BOGSIDE NIL.⁴” - who inspired the reprisal after the slaughter of 14 (thirteen was the count at the time of Heaney's writing) unarmed protestors in Derry on what came to be known as Bloody Sunday^c5.  This even handedness is a thematic response to his context, a cry for help against the pointlessness of violence.
Heaney's political poetry is extensive and as he says, its foundation is “a moral down-to-earthness [such as that of Wilfred Owen] to which I responded deeply and always will”^c1. He also provides reasons for his relatively late utilisation of the political theme

“[as a child] we could pick up...in the resonant English tones of the newsreader the names of bombers and of cities bombed, of war fronts and army divisions...But even so, none of the news of these world-spasms entered me as terror... there was something torpid about our understanding of what was at stake”^c1

which is similar to his reasons for early self-examination in his work ; the insular nature of the community of his young life.

Heaney also entertains a historical theme in many of his works – a semi-morbid, semi-sexual fascination with historical happenings and their parallels with the modern world. This is clear in poems of his such as “Limbo”, “The Early Purges”, “The Tollund Man” and “Punishment”. The poem “Punishment” provides an almost overtly sexual, voyeuristic look at the cruelties of ancient civilization. Heaney, ladling this poem with phrases such as “on her naked front” and “It blows her nipples/to amber beads,/it shakes the frail rigging/of her ribs.”, conjures a semi-erotic vision of an emaciated, petrified victim. He turns an archaeological discovery from something of interest into something of morbid sexual excitement. However, after the change of perspective (the halfway point) he also imbues a sense of dirtiness, immorality or impropriety:

“Little adulteress,
before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,
undernourished, and your
tar-black face was beautiful.
My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you
but would have cast, I know,
the stones of silence.
I am the artful voyeur

of your brain's exposed
and darkened combs,
your muscles' webbing
and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge. “

Similarly, in the poem “Limbo” Heaney reflects on historical events and themes and, again similarly, instils a sense of shame into the reader through their relation to the Abrahamic religions. However,  the poem itself also provides a commentary on the nature of the historical problems of Ireland and the Irish people and their parallels in the modern world. “Limbo” describes a mother drowning her illegitimate new-born child. Heaney treats the subject gently, almost reverentially with a tenderness implied by the choice of language (an example is use of the word “tender” itself), however, he also lashes out at the futility of religion and the loss of life. In the final lines “Even Christ's palms, unhealed,/Smart and cannot fish there.” the persona rejects the Catholic morale ideals by rejecting the apparent morality of the act of shriving oneself, the idea that an unchristened child remains in limbo (purgatory) forever and the immorality of the woman for bearing an illegitimate child. This historical theme is present in many of Heaney's works, especially in the famous “bog” poems and his several poems that deal with religion

Heaney's gift is the ability to explore grandiose patterns of thematic material derived from his context in a personal and invigorating way. It is clear that his work demonstrates the effect that context can have on the artist, ranging from his insular childhood world to the fearful, evil setting of Irish, religious civil war^c1c7. Nowhere does Heaney demonstrate this contextual development of thematic patterns more than in his Nobel Prize Address – Crediting Poetry^c1. In this speech he details the varying influences on his poetry throughout his life, from his childhood through his education and his young family life and now into maturity. He says in this address that he has been greatly affected by the capacity of humanity for violence and destruction and that much of his poetry reflects this. The themes examined above (history, politics and the self) come from his life and his experiences. The first theme discussed, introspection, is probably the closest to Heaney. It was the first idea which he wrote about and the main theme of his first collection. Indeed according to essayist Adam Kirsch: “few poets have ever interrogated themselves more strenuously than Heaney; again and again in his poetry we find him confronting himself…with his responsibilities as a man and a poet”^c6. In his speech Heaney examined the origins of his writings concerning the second theme - politics – “[My involvement in this theme came about] by having to conduct oneself as a poet in a situation of ongoing political violence and public expectation. A public expectation, it has to be said, not of poetry as such but of political positions variously approvable by mutually disapproving groups.” He went on to say “as we channel-surf over so much live coverage of contemporary savagery, ... in danger of growing immune”^c1 he finds a need to “register a human greif”^c2.  The same can be said of the third theme – history – in which he examines the grief of loss, the lack of knowledge garnered from history (which, according to Heaney, is “about as instructive as an abattoir”^c1). Truly however, the greatest gift that Heaney displays is the way he expresses profundity – on any theme - with such an economy of words to enrapture the audience, an example being the haunting last lines of “Casualty”:

Notes:

1.       Guernica is one of Picasso’s most famous works and depicts the destruction of Spain, The Disasters of War is a moving tribute and memoriam by Goya to the dead of the Peninsular War and the atrocities committed during it.

2.       Pratchett’s Jingo and Monstrous Regiment both depict war zones, one which is an intimate examination of the inherent criminality of war and the other which is about the pointlessness of war for war’s sake. 1984 is the most famous of Orwell’s works, it depicts a fascist regime, similar to that of Stalin which controls people by a “thought police”, Animal Farm depicts the slide of perfect Communism into Fascism and the consequent decay.

3.       His first major books of poetry – Death of a Naturalist, Door in the Dark and even to some extent Night Drive.

4.       Bogside or The Bogs is a common name for “Free Derry” the area of Londonderry most populated by Catholics. Bogside can be either endearing or spiteful, in this case it is most likely spiteful.^c4

Sources:

1.       “Credited Poetry” Seamus Heaney. Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1995, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1996                                                                             <http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-lecture.html>

2.       “Hurt into Poetry: The Political Verses of Seamus Heaney and Robert Bly” Jeffery Alan Triggs. 1992. The New Orleans Review 19.3-4. Fall & Winter. 162-73.

3.       "Provisional Irish Republican Army." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 17 May 2007, 20:10 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 19 May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=PIRA>.

4.       "Bloody Sunday (1972)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 19 May 2007, 09:17 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 19 May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29&oldid=131970094>.

5.       "Bloody Sunday (1972)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 19 May 2007, 09:17 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 19 May 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bloody_Sunday_%281972%29&oldid=131970094>.

6.        “Seamus Heaney, Digging with the Pen: On rhymes and responsibilities” Adam Kirsch. 2006. Harvard Magazine. November–December 2006.                                                                                                < http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/110639.html>

7.       “Seamus Heaney: New Selected Poems: 1966-1987” Andrew Lynch. Unknown. The University of W.A. . Unknown

Note: All poems taken from:

"New Selected 1966-1987" Seamus Heaney. 1990. Faber & Faber. 19 May 2007