Continuity In Seamus Heaney's “Digging“
Many consider Seamus Heaney to be the greatest Irish poet of the late 20th Century. Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, Heaney is best known for metaphors, intense detail, and effective use of setting. His numerous volumes have covered a variety of topics, ranging from historical topics such as the Act of Union to rural Irish life and the current conflict in Northern Ireland. Heaney was one of the leading poets of the 1970s, with much of his work set in the rural Northern Ireland setting of his youth. He is well known for his sharp and sometimes violent language which described the tumultuous situation at the time. His first volume, Death of a Naturalist, dealt with farming and other natural settings. The first piece of this volume, “Digging,” is especially significant in that establishes Heaney as a poet both in reality and symbolically: “Digging” symbolizes Heaney’s departure from continuity by his choosing to be a poet rather than a farmer like his father, while also maintaining continuity through an extended metaphor in which Heaney suggests writing is his form of “digging.” Heaney was born into a lower-class potato farming family in rural Northern Ireland in 1939. He began studying at Q
returned to that from which the subject was separated by knowledge, by comparing Heaney’s works to his father’s fields: like farming, in Heaney’s form of “digging,” many treasures will be uncovered, and when done, he will be able to look back, survey his hard work and take pride in it. with the aura and authenticity of archaeological finds, where the The speaker is obviously concerned with being alienated from his family, and feels a need to connect with their past. The solution to his problem is found in the final lines, “The squat pen rests/I’ll dig with it.” In these few simple words, Heaney makes the huge implication that by writing, the act which he felt he was called to do, he will be doing his own form of “digging.”
Some topics in this essay:
Death Naturalist,
Preoccupations Poetry,
David Lloyd,
Prize Literature,
Northern Ireland,
Ireland Heaney,
Act Union,
Heaney Irish,
Queen’s University,
form “digging”,
northern ireland,
,
volume death naturalist,
extended metaphor,
poem heaney,
physical labor,
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volume death,
rural irish,
restoration culture,
rural northern,
rural northern ireland,
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Approximate Word count = 994
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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