Dissertation
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Seamus Heaney’s Sense of Place: Towards a Definition of Irish Identity 1956 – 2006 Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie an der Geisteswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Karl Franzens Universität Graz eingereicht von Mag. Verena Brunner am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Univ.-Doz. Mag. Dr. Walter Bernhart Zweitbegutachter: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Univ. Doz. Mag. Dr. Hugo Keiper Graz, 2008 Acknowledgement Thank you to my family and friends for their support and patience. I want to thank Prof. Walter Bernhart and Prof. Hugo Keiper for their fruitful discussions and helpful advice. Contents 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..…1 2. Seamus Heaney – Poet and Critic…………………………………………………………6 2. 1. Place and History………………………………………………………………………11 2. 2. Myth…………………………………………………………………………………….15 2. 3. Sense of Place…………………………………………………………………………...19 2. 4. Postcolonial Experience………………………………………………………………..24 3. Poetry - Forging an Irish Identity……………………………………………………….28 3. 1. Identity and Sense of Place……………………………………….…………………...33 3. 2. Poetry as a Source of Identity…………………………………...…………………….38 4. Heaney´s Early Work – Finding a Voice………………………………………………..41 4. 1. From Landscape to Soundscape………………………………………..……………..44 4. 2. Words – Representing a Country……………………………………………………..52 4. 3. Place Poems…………………………………………………………………………….63 5. Finding a Metaphor………………………………………………………………………69 5. 1. North – ‘A More Mature Voice’………………………………………………………75 5. 2. Word Field……………………………………………………………………………...82 5. 3. A Comment on the North of Ireland………………………………………………….87 6. Manifestation of a Theme………………………………………………………………..90 6. 1. Field Work ……………………………………………………………………………...94 6. 2. Elegies and Sonnets……………………………………………………………………99 6. 3. Images: Merged, Revised and Reversed…………………………………………….104 7. Station Island …………………………………………………………………………….109 7. 1. Mythology……………………………………………………………………………..114 7. 2. Sweeney Astray : An Irish Myth………………………………………………………119 8. ‘Going-In-Between’……………………………………………………………………..124 8. 1. The Haw Lantern ……………………………………………………………………..128 8. 2. An Allegorical Place………………………………………………………………….134 8. 3. Terminus – Borders and Boundaries……………………………………………….138 9. Seeing Things ………………………………………………………………………….....143 9. 1. Dante`s “Inferno”……………………………………………………………………..148 9. 2. Longitude and Latitude………………………………………………………………153 10. The Spirit Level …………………………………………………………………………158 10. 1. Return to Place Names……………………………………………………………...162 10. 2. Re-visiting Myth, Images, ‘Word–Hoard’…………………………………………167 11. Electric Light – ‘Lux Perpetua’………………………………………………………..172 11. 1. Eclogues……………………………………………………………………………....178 11. 2. Memory and Place ...……………………………………………………………….. 183 12. Inheritance of a Theme………………………………………………………………...188 12. 1. District and Circle …………………………………………………………………....194 12. 2. The Prodigy of an Irish Poet………………………………………………………..200 13. Display, Renewal and Change – A Summary………………………………………...204 14. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….209 15. Appendix………………………………………………………………………………..218 15. 1. Word Fields…………………………………………………………………………..218 15. 1. 1. Word Field “Nature” – Death of a Naturalist …………………………………...218 15. 1. 2. Word Field “Nature” – Door into the Dark ……………………………………...221 15. 1. 3. Word Field “Nature” – Wintering Out …………………………………………...225 15. 1. 4. Word Field “Place” – North ……………………………………………………....230 15. 2. Poems………………………………………………………………………………….236 15. 2. 1. Death of a Naturalist ………………………………………………………………236 15. 2. 2. Door into the Dark ………………………………………………………………...243 15. 2. 3. Wintering Out ……………………………………………………………………...250 15. 2. 4. North ……………………………………………………………………………….258 15. 2. 5. Field Work …………………………………………………………………………278 15. 2. 6. Station Island ……………………………………………………………………....284 15. 2. 7. The Haw Lantern ………………………………………………………………….293 15. 2. 8. Seeing Things ……………………………………………………………………...300 15. 2. 9. The Spirit Level ……………………………………………………………………307 15. 2. 10. Electric Light ……………………………………………………………………..314 15. 2. 11. District and Circle ………………………………………………………………..322 Seamus Heaney, 2007, Dun Laoghire, Poetry Now Festival Seamus Heaney signing my copy of District and Circle 1. Introduction Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 and grew up on a farm, called Mossbawn, in the rural county of Derry. This experience shaped him immensely because in his poems there is a connection to the local place throughout his writing career. This thesis provides an analysis of Seamus Heaney’s poetry with respect to one main feature of his work; his interest in place. Seamus Heaney’s poems are characterised by a particular relation to places. The purpose of this analysis is to define the features of a ‘sense of place’ that contributes to shaping a feeling of belonging to a place. In the poems, this ‘sense of place’ is represented mainly through images. His complete poetic work needs to be examined in order to identify this specific aspect and to reconstruct and interpret the development of this theme in its cultural and historical context. On the one hand, such an analysis provides an insight into one special characteristic of Heaney’s own poetic voice. The poetic voice of a poet is unique, and sometimes it is a feature that allows the reader to recognise the poet’s work. Heaney’s poetic voice is characterised and represented through symbols and metaphors, themes, form and technique. On the other hand, such a cultural and historical interpretation reveals a common Irish context of ‘sense of place’, which describes the interaction between country, people, the Irish and an individual human being, the poet, as an ongoing process of creating an identity of a whole nation. This process implies that the perception of the nation’s identity changes. In his poetic discourse, Seamus Heaney contributes to shaping a national identity. An analysis of his works, therefore, reveals the individual approach and strategies used in this process and it identifies the importance of literature, i. e. poetry in a social and political context. Heaney’s work is a rich source of critical investigation and a lot of different approaches have been taken towards his work. Heaney’s poetic voice has been identified and analysed according to its dominant features. Renowned critics such as Edna Longley, Neil Corcoran, Peter McDonald and Fran Brearton have examined Heaney’s work relating to various artistic and poetic aspects and have detected dominant poetic devices – metaphors and themes. For instance, Helen Vendler discusses Heaney’s work in her book Seamus Heaney , where she reconstructs the development of his poetic voice from Death of a Naturalist (1966) to The Spirit Level (1996). Vendler gives an insight into Heaney’s verse through her sensitive examination of the work in connection with the poet. According to Vendler, Heaney defines himself through his poems and is always closely related to the speakers in the poems. For example, Vendler interprets the dream sequence in the section “Station Island” as a biographical poem (cf. 1 Vendler, 2000: 78). The approach chosen in this doctoral thesis is inspired by Helen Vendler’s approach of reading and interpreting the poems in connection with the poet himself and uses the works, i. e., of Corcoran, Longley, McDonald and Duffy as a framework for an analysis of Seamus Heaney’s poetry in regard to the representation of place and the way he establishes his own myth as well as a poetic myth of Ireland and Irish identity. The theories of Joseph Campbell, Roland Barthes, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Seymour Chatman provide the theoretical background for defining, identifying and analysing Heaney’s ‘sense of place’ in this dissertation. Heaney himself interprets his poems as part of his identity as a poet in several critical essays. This means the poet and his work are closely connected because he is present in the poem through his self-reflective tendency. Neil Corcoran examines Heaney as poet, critic and translator and points out that Heaney’s poetry is influenced by different literary sources. Corcoran also explains that Heaney is aware of his responsibility as a poet and that this awareness is a major feature of his work. In addition, Corcoran explores the development of Heaney’s style and the change of forms and techniques of poetry in his books. The change of form contributes to an altering of meaning in poetry. The poet’s work has not only been analysed according to its formal features, it has also been interpreted in the context of the political discourse of that time. Thus, Heaney’s work has been analysed regarding its involvement in the political discourse of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Peter McDonald points out that poets in the North of Ireland tend to assume the role of a passive witness of violence by taking over the role of a poet as wise spectator (cf. McDonald, 1997: 52). It can be said that Heaney participated in the political discourse of the Troubles by shaping the bog poems in North . This volume established an imagery rooted in the ground of rural Ireland, as a matter of fact, words such as ‘bog’, ‘mould’ and ‘turf’ became emblematic terms to describe the Irish experience during the Troubles. In this dissertation, an examination of his early poetry collections was made. Word fields were examined according to certain features. The outcome of the analysis establishes the hypothesis of this study, which shows that Heaney’s work is characterised by a language rooted in the Irish ground. To provide a coherence for the narrative of his poems, Heaney uses history or tradition. The historical