Who is Seamus Heaney?

Seamus Heaney may be the greatest Irish poet of the ladder half of the twentieth Century. Heaney’s work follows in the footsteps of Yeats. Like Yeats, Heaney uses all aspects of Irish culture, history, folklore, song, myth, and religion to write poetry that not only describes the Irish experience to the reader, but also allows the reader to feel the experience and emotions of the Irish people. Writing in what can only be described as the Irish Literary Tradition, Heaney manages to write political poetry without coming off as a minister of propaganda.

Although the critic Edna Longley argues the contrary, Heaney is writing in the Irish Literary Tradition that uses song, folklore and history to create a unique literary style in spite of the fact Irish writers must communicate in a foreign language, the language of the conqueror. Edna Longley argues the opposite:

‘Bone Dreams’, as perhaps its title candidly admits, loses all contact with the thing itself: ‘I wind it in // the sling of mind/ to pitch it at ‘England’. An ecumenical gesture, despite the metaphor, but ‘England’ soon becomes an amalgam of history, geography, literary, and linguistic tradition (‘Elizabethan canopies./Norman devices’; ‘ban-bus . . .where the soul/fluttered a while’; ‘I am. . .a chalk giant’; Hardian’s wall’; etc.). Apart from section VI, a beautifully exact poem about a mole—and moles do focus differences between the Irish and English terrains—the poem turns the tables on Romantic versions of Ireland in English Literature. (Longley. “’Inner Emigr’e’ or ‘Artful Voyeur’?” 35)

Longley’s argument is pure propaganda. It is as if she is claiming that because the English robbed the Irish of their language, they now have no literary tradition of their own. How ridiculous! From Longley’s point of view, the same must be true of American writers. It is not. American’s may share a common language with the British, but they write in a literary tradition that is their own. Specifically, the short story is an American literary tradition that begins with Hawthorne and was perfected by Poe. The only thing the American literary tradition owes to British literary tradition is language. Otherwise, the style is uniquely American. This is not to say that American writers were not influenced by the English literary tradition, they were, but they were also influenced by their unique setting, an isolated country, an independent and revolutionary spirit, and a multitude of foreign writers. In an article written for the Boston Irish Reporter entitled, “A Collection of Essays Review The Work of Seamus Heaney,” Herbert A. Kenney quotes Tony Curtis, a senior lecturer in English at the Polytechnic in Wales and author of the book “The Art of Seamus Heaney, “I set out to argue that Seamus Heaney was a poet of real significance; that he, together with Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin, had made the most important contributions to British Poetry in the last thirty years” (qtd. in Kenney, 1). Kenney goes on to argue that Curtis is not totally correct in his assumptions about Heaney,

“An open Letter”

To Blake and Andrew, Editors

Contemporary British Verse,

Penquin Books, Middlesex, Dear Sirs,

My anxious Muse

Roused on her bed of furze,

Has to refuse

The adjective. It makes her blush.

It brings her out in a hot flush.

Before this she was called “British”

And acquiesced

But this time it’s like the third wish

The crucial test.

Kenney continues,

He [Heaney] goes on to say, ‘My passport’s green, no glass of our was ever raised to toast the Queen.’ The poem speaks of his reluctance to speak out, and thanks Penquin Books for calling attention to his work, but at last—in 33 stanzas not unlike Dante—he regrets it “but British, no, the name’s not right. (Kenney, 3)

The reference to Dante is interesting. Dante and Homer wrote in a literary tradition that pre-dates British literary tradition. Since, the British writers studied the Latin and Greek authors, and at one time were conquered by the Romans, one could argue, using Longley, that British Literary tradition is actually a Latin or Greek literary tradition.

African-American writer Toni Morrison does not write in a British or American literary tradition. Like Heaney and Yeats, Morrison by combining the folklore, songs, myths, experiences, and word of mouth history passed on by her ancestors since captivity, writes in a unique style of writing that can only be described as African-American. Morrison’s ancestors did not speak English. Their language and most of their culture and history—similar to the plight of the Irish--was stolen by the plantation owner. Simply put, just because one society has been conquered by another does not mean the conquered side’s literary tradition no longer exists. Contrary, a conquered society, having no real weapons other than words, will always create a literary style unique to their dilemma and suffering. Heaney quotes from Yeats’s Nobel lecture in his own Nobel speech, “He [Yeats] came to Sweden to tell the world that the local work of poets and dramatists had been as important to the transformation of his native place and times as the ambushes of guerilla armies.” The main ingredient used to preserve Irish culture is not a Molotov cocktail, it is literature. Literature does more to bring about change in the Irish society than bombs and bullets.

The critic David Lloyd argues against Longley’s position that because the English robbed the Irish of their language they will always feel indebted or dependent upon England for their literary tradition. Lloyd states:

It is within the matrix of British Romanticism that the question of Irish identity is posed, with the result that the critique of imperialism is caught up within reflected forms of imperialist ideology. . .The nationalist critic D.F. MacCarthy provides a representative instance. . .MacCarthy argues that full knowledge of the ballad of poetry of Ireland would furnish not only an aid to an archaeology of the Irish genius, but the very foundation on which an Irish Literature might construct a distinctive identity.” (David Lloyd. “Pap for the Dispossessed.” 14).

MacCarthy goes on to argue that Irish literary tradition is based upon English literary traditon:

That we can be thoroughly Irish in our feelings without ceasing to be English in our speech; that we can be faithful to the land of our birth, without being ungrateful to that literature which has been ‘the nursing mother of our minds’; that we can develop the intellectual. (qtd. in Lloyd. 14)

Why? The English literary tradition draws heavily from Greek, Roman, Italian, and French literary traditions. If the Irish people were only exposed to the English literary tradition, and not Homer, Dante and other’s--who write in foreign languages--maybe this statement would ring true. But English literary tradition draws knowledge from everywhere, not solely from England.

Native-American literary tradition has many similarities to the Irish literary tradition. The common bond they share is the land. Both the Irish and Native-American peoples live in the historical lands of their ancestors, but are no longer the ruling party governing those lands. In spite of their ancestral language, lands, and culture being stolen from them, Native-American writers like Louise Ehrdrich author of “Love Medicine”, and Susan Power author of “The Grass Dancers,” write in a Native-American literary tradition that differs greatly from the American literary tradition. Ehrdrich and Power weave together a larger story through a series of short stories, myths, legends, and historical accounts. The result is a style of writing that is as unique as the African-American style of Morrison, the American literary style of Hawthorne, Poe, and Melville, and the Irish literary style of Yeats and Heaney.

Edna Longley would disagree. In spite of a great respect for Heaney’s work, Longley continues to pound home the argument that Heaney writes in a British literary tradition. Longley emphasizes near the end of her essay: “‘The Seed Cutters’ also shows how the English dimension technique lives on in a correctness and empiricism reminiscent of nothing so much as Edward Thomas’s Haymaking. . .”(Longley 168). Why call it an English dimension? As argued earlier, Heaney’s work owes as much to the Greek and Latin literary tradition as it does to the British. Heaney, afterall, was taught in a Catholic school where no doubt he was taught to read and write in Latin. In fact, according to Longley’s reasoning, there is no British literary tradition! Britain was conquered by the Romans, and raided by numerous other people’s who had established literary traditions. Plus, like Heaney, most British literary figures were educated in Latin. Therefore, British literary tradition is actually Roman or Latin literary tradition.

Longley’s argument sounds like pure British colonialist propaganda. Longley is using the same argument used to defend colonialism. The Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Indians, Native-Americans etc., were colonized for their own good. The English believed they were saving conquered peoples from their barbaric past. From the English point of view, conquered peoples were uneducated barbarians and needed the English to bring civilization to their land. Therefore, since the natives were uneducated, uncivilized barbarians they had no literary tradition, and cannot develop a literary tradition that is not dependent upon English literary tradition. What propaganda! It sounds as if the English are afraid to lend credence to an the notion of an Irish literary tradition. Afterall, if the Irish have their own literary tradition, it helps to strengthen Irish identity and Irish nationalism. By claiming Irish literature as their own, the British completely disavow any idea of an Independent Irish identity. Besides, a literary tradition did exist in Ireland before the English conquered the island. It was passed down in myths, folklore, tales and song.

In his article, “Pap for the Dispossessed” David Lloyd quotes form Thomas Davis’s essay entitled “Our National Language.” Davis argues that a conquered people who’s language and culture is robbed from them, can still redevelop their own literary tradition. Lloyd writes:

The deterritorialization is seen by Davis as occurring in three main forms: in the relation of identity to territory, in the relation of placename to territory, in the relation of the people to their history, as the continuity of a patrimony. Language mediates each of these relations. The reterritorialization of language as the literary language of culture is accordingly threefold. The identification of the writer with that spirit of the nation which his researches reveal supplies his relation to the ‘entail feeling’ which links him to his patrimony; that identification similarly ensures the revitalization of the relation of his language to native place or ground, despite the fact that language will, as MacCarthy was only to aware, be english; and thirdly, the revitalized relation of write to place sutures that writer’s formerly ruptured identity, ensuring, as if to complete the topology, his relation to the paternal spirit or genius of the nation. (Lloyd 16)

Heaney’s and Yeats’s poetry re-establishes Irish literary tradition according to the guides set by Thomas. Heaney’s combination of myth, history, folklore, song, and personal experiences “supplies his relation to the ‘entail feeling’ which links him to his patrimony” (Lloyd 16).

Although Heaney writes from a uniquely Irish tradition, he still manages to avoid writing pure propaganda. Heaney straddles the line between political activist and poet with extreme subtlety. He avoids blanket criticism of either side, and instead writes in an ambiguous way that holds meaning for all readers, and all sides of the Irish struggle. Instead of writing a poem about a specific group of people who were wronged by one side or the other, Heaney would just describe the scene without party affiliation or with equal blame spread to all practitioners of violence. Heaney told the following story in his Nobel Lecture in Stockholm Sweden. A group of workers were returning home in a minibus when they were “held up at gunpoint by armed and masked men and the occupants ordered to line up at the side of the road. Then one of the masked executioners said to them, “Any Catholics among you, step out here?” The group included only one Catholic and the general assumption was the “masked men were Protestant paramilitaries” looking for revenge by killing the lone Catholic in the group “the one who would have been presumed to be in sympathy with the IRA and all its actions.” The man started to step forward when “he felt the hand of the Protestant worker next to him take his hand and squeeze in a signal that said no, don’t move, we’ll not betray you nobody need know what faith or party you belong to (Heaney, 6).” The Catholic man stepped forward anyway, and the masked men opened fire killing all the Protestants. The story is like Heaney’s poetry. It is political but at the same time above politics, because it holds emotional meaning for both sides of the confrontation. Heaney’s poetry tries to reach both sides of a conflict in almost the same way this vignette touches both sides. Heaney said in his Nobel lecture, “the birth of the future we desire is surely in the contraction which that terrified Catholic felt on the roadside when another hand gripped his hand, not in the gunfire that followed, so absolute and so desolate, if also so much a part of the music of what happens” (7). The main scope of Heaneys poetry lies within “the contraction which that terrified Catholic felt on the roadside.” He wishes to make a political statement, but at the same time he wishes to stay above and outside politics and political influence.

A perfect example of a Heaney poem that is political and at the same time above politics and political influence is “Digging.” The first two stanzas “Between my finger and thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun” immediately sets a political tone. This is, afterall, an Irish poet comparing his pen to a gun. The rest of the poem is non-committal. Heaney takes no sides and spews no propaganda. He simply describes the Irish landscape and the labors of his father and grandfather when they work the land. Heaney is saying that his ancestors used their strength to fight their battles. Heaney, however, must fight his battles in a different way. His ancestors were one with the land. They were part of the land. It was the only thing the British couldn't steal form them. They could take ownership of the land, but they could not steal the Irish people’s relationship to the land. Heaney makes it clear in “Digging” that he will fight his battles with his pen, “Between my finger and thumb / The squat pen rests. / I’ll dig with it.” His ancestors used their strength, represented by their labors, but Heaney chooses to battle “the music of what happens.” The only way Heaney can have a relationship with the land is through his writing.

Heaney explains his reason for not taking a strong political stance or supporting one party in his Nobel lecture, while the Christian moralist in oneself was impelled to deplore the atrocious nature of the IRA’s campaign of bombings and killings, and the “mere Irish” in oneself was appalled by the ruthlessness of the British Army on occasions like Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, the minority citizen in oneself, the one who had grown up conscious that his group was distrusted and discriminated against in all kinds of official and unofficial ways, this citizen’s perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based. (Heaney,6)

Heaney does not wish to be “destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.” Therefore, his poetry remains purposely ambiguous. In “Whatever You Say / Say Nothing,” found in the book North, Heaney delivers a strong political message for all of Ireland without supporting either side.

As to the jottings and analyses

Of politicians and newspapermen

Who’ve scribbled down the long campaign from gas

And protest to gelignit and sten. . .

‘Religion’s never mentioned here,’ of course.

‘You know them by their eyes,’ and hold your tongue.

‘One side’s as bad as the other,’ never worse.

Christ, it’s near time that some small leak was sprung.”

In “Poetic authority and accountability: what we expect of Seamus Heaney,” Christopher Malone also supports the idea Heaney’s poetry is political while at the same time above political propaganda. Malone writes, “his poetry explores that political past and seemingly looks for and hopes to provide answers that might lead to some articulation of an undivided Irish identity.” The fact Heaney tries to write for the benefit of all of Ireland, Catholic and Protestant alike, also lends credence and support to the earlier argument made that Heaney writes in an Irish literary tradition.

Not everyone supports the idea Heaney straddles the middle ground in the Irish struggle. In “A collection of Essays Review the Work of Seamus Heaney,” Herbert Kenney writes that Tony Curtis said,

Heaney was branded, by a Belfast newspaper, ‘a well known Papist propagandist’ The poetry in “Field Work,” his fifth book, Curtis writes, renders such a charge absurd. It is interesting to note that while this charge was made against him in the north a pamphlet was published in Dublin attacking him for, in effect, not being a propagandist for the Republican Army (Kenney,4).

Interesting, one side thinks he is a propagandist for the Pope and most likely the IRA, and the other side brands him a trader because they think he should be a propagandist for the IRA. It sounds like Heaney’s straddling the middle ground, because both extremist sides are unhappy.

Don’t mistake Heaney’s resistance to defend one side or the other as indifference. Heaney sees the evil both sides commit, and is appalled. Heaney stands for the side of peace in his poetry. The only true way to do that, as he said in his Nobel lecture, is to accept the fact that “the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.” Heaney, a Catholic, would most likely prefer a United Irish Republic, but refuses to side with any party that supports violence and war. Heaney stated, at the end of his Nobel lecture, why he cannot take sides in his poetry:

The form of the poem, in other words, is crucial to poetry’s power to do the same thing which always is and always will be to poetry’s credit: the power to persuade that vulnerable part of our consciousness of its rightness in spite of the evidence of wrongness all around it, the power to remind us that we are hunters and gatherers of values, that our very solitudes and distresses are creditable, in so far as they, too, are an earnest of our veritable human being. (Heaney)

Heaney’s work accomplishes all of this and more.