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Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �1
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Seamus HeaneyA Study Guide | © Cian Hogan
Seamus Heaney (1939–2013)
!Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 in the townland of Mossbawn, County
Derry, in Northern I re land. By the mid-1960s,
h is poetry was appear ing regular ly in l i terary
magazines. S ince then he has achieved what
can only be descr ibed as a meteor ic r ise to
fame. In 1995 he won the Nobel Pr ize for
L i terature and is now widely regarded as one
of the leading poets of his generat ion and the
greatest I r ish poet s ince Yeats . The poems on
y o u r c o u r s e b y S e a m u s H e a n e y a r e
representat ive of his body of work as a whole.
They are by turns mythological and grounded in everyday real i ty, erot ic
and innocent, rural and cosmopol i tan. Heaney’s poetry is , to borrow from
Harold Bloom, ‘keyed and pitched unl ike any other s igni f icant poet at work
in the language anywhere’. In his Nobel Pr ize acceptance speech, Heaney
praised the undisputed achievement of W.B. Yeats , whose work he fel t
‘does what the necessary poetry a lways does, which is to touch the base of
our sympathet ic nature whi le tak ing in at the same t ime the unsympathet ic
nature of the world’. This could easi ly be read as an assessment of
Heaney’s own poetry.
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Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �2
!!!!!A Constable Cal ls
!His bicycle stood at the window-si l l ,
The rubber cowl of a mud-splasher
Ski rt ing the f ront mudguard,
I ts fat black handlegr ips
!Heating in sunl ight , the ‘spud‘ 5
Of the dynamo gleaming and cocked back,
The pedal t reads hanging rel ieved
Of the boot of the law.
!His cap was upside down
On the f loor, next his chair. 10
The l ine of i ts pressure ran l ike a bevel
In his s l ight ly sweat ing hair.
!He had unstrapped
The heavy ledger, and my father
Was making t i l lage returns 15
In acres, roods, and perches.
!Ari thmetic and fear.
I sat s tar ing at the pol ished holster
With i ts buttoned f lap, the braid cord
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �3
Looped into the revolver butt . 20
!‘Any other root crops?
Mangolds? Marrowstems? Anything l ike that? ’
‘No.’ But was there not a l ine
Of turnips where the seed ran out
!In the potato f ie ld? I assumed 25
Smal l gui l ts and sat
Imagining the black hole in the barracks.
He stood up, shi fted the baton-case
!Farther round on his belt ,
Closed the domesday book, 30
Fi tted his cap back with two hands,
And looked at me as he said goodbye.
!A shadow bobbed in the window.
He was snapping the carr ier spr ing
Over the ledger. His boot pushed off 35
And the bicycle t icked, t icked, t icked.
!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �4
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Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �5
1. Content
! Speaking of his sense of ident i ty as a Cathol ic in an interv iew with
Seamus Deane, Heaney had the fol lowing to say:
!Poetry is born out of the watermarks and colourings of the self .
But that self in some ways takes its spir itual pulse from the
inward spir itual structuring of the community to which it belongs:
and the community to which I belong is Cathol ic and National ist . I
bel ieve that the poet’s force now, and hopeful ly in the future, is
to maintain the efficacy of his ‘mythos’, his own cultural and
pol it ical colourings, rather than to serve any particular momentary
strategy and his pol it ical leaders, his parami l itary organisation or
his own l iberal self might want him to serve . I think that poetry and
pol it ics are, in different ways, an articulation , an ordering, a giv ing
form to inchoate pieties, prejudices, world-v iews, or whatever . And I
think that my own poetry is a kind of slow, obstinate, papish burn ,
emanating from the ground I was brought up on .
! Certa inly i t i s di ff icul t to read this poem without sensing the ‘papish
burn’ of which Heaney speaks. The poem opens with a depict ion of the
constable’s bike that stood at the ‘window-si l l ’ . Whi le there is nothing
unusual about any of i ts component parts , i t i s di ff icul t not to feel that th is
bike const i tutes a threat . A gun comes to mind when, in the second stanza,
we learn that the ‘ “spud” | Of the [bike’s] dynamo’ was ‘cocked back.’ A
sense of the constable’s presence is conveyed by the bike’s pedal
t reads, which hang ‘ rel ieved | Of the boot of the law.’ In the next stanza,
further information regarding this man’s arr iva l is provided.
!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �6
Something of the qual i ty of the welcome that this man has been
afforded is conveyed when we are told that his cap lay ‘upside down | On
the f loor, next his chair ’. In the f inal couplet , Heaney int imates that the
constable is a physical ly unappeal ing man. He is ‘sweat ing’ and the l ine of
pressure on his head caused by the t ightness of his cap suggests that he is
overweight . As the chi ld narrator looks on, the constable opens his ledger
and his father makes his returns in imperia l measurements:
! He had unstrapped
The heavy ledger, and my father
Was making t i l lage returns
In acres, roods, and perches.
!The opening l ine of the next stanza conveys the intensi ty of the scene.
‘Fear ’ mingles with ‘Arithmetic ’ and the inferences of v iolence that were
suggested by the constable’s bike in the previous stanzas now become
overt . The speaker ’s attent ion is drawn to the ‘polished holster ’ and the
‘revolver butt .’ In the next stanza, the speaker ’s apprehension leads him to
wonder i f h is father is being ent i re ly t ruthful when he answers ‘No ’ to the
constable’s quest ions concerning root crops. His worry is heightened as he
begins to f ret about possible imprisonment and the ‘black hole in the
barracks .’ Of course, the constable does not take any act ion. He s imply
c loses his ‘domesday book, ’ p laces his ‘cap ’ on his head and looks at the
speaker as he says ‘goodbye ’. In the f inal s tanza, the constable’s shadow
bobs in the window as he prepares to leave. The c losing l ine of the poem,
with the t ick ing of the constable’s bike as i t moves into the distance, is
h igh ly suggest i ve of the menace that he represents in the poet ’s
imaginat ion.
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Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �7
2. Styl ist ic Features
! This poem, which f i rs t appeared in the col lect ion Singing School , is
one of s ix autobiographical works that detai l Heaney’s growing sense of
ident i ty both as a poet and a Northern I r ish Cathol ic . ‘A Constable Cal ls ’ i s
h is most overt ly pol i t ical poem on the Leaving Cert i f icate sy l labus. The
pol i t ical agenda can f i rs t be seen in the poem’s t i t le . The word ‘constable ’
i s h ighly suggest ive of Br i t ish rule. The poem recal ls the v is i t of an RUC
man to his home in order to col lect agr icul tural s tat is t ics . Told pr incipal ly
through the eyes of a chi ld, the reader is a lso made aware of a second
voice. Al though i t is not fu l ly art iculated, there is a sense of adult
r e s e n t m e n t f o r t h e l a w . To b e g i n w i t h , t h e c o n s t a b l e ’s b i k e i s
representat ive of the repress ion that the poet associates with the Royal
Ulster Constabulary. The ‘rubber cowl ’ and ‘ fat black handlegrips’ recal l
the batons and rubber bul lets that were f requent ly used by the RUC
dur ing the Troubles. The associat ion with v iolence is maintained in the
descr ipt ion of the ‘dynamo .’ The fact that i t l ies ‘cocked back ’ i s s t rongly
suggest ive of a gun that is ready to f i re . S imi lar ly, the mention of the ‘boot
of the law ’ br ings to mind the jackbooted pol ic ing that was often
associated with the RUC. One of the most interest ing sty l is t ic features of
th is poem is the manner in which Heaney manages to infer the nature of
the deep-rooted div ide that exists between the predominant ly Protestant
pol ice force and the Cathol ic minor i ty. The cacophonous ‘g’, ‘ s ’ and ‘k ’
sounds of the f i rs t two stanzas further add to the underly ing tension of the
constable’s v is i t . The fact that the poet ’s parents do not afford the man
anything near ing a hospitable welcome speaks volumes about the div is ion
that exists in this society. Rather than take his cap, as would normal ly
happen with a v is i tor, i t i s left on the ground.
!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �8
In the second movement, Heaney al lows the chi ld’s voice to intrude.
The sense of cur ios i ty and wonder that should be a chi ld’s react ion to the
arr iva l of a pol iceman is supplanted by apprehension and palpable
tension. The descr ipt ion of the constable works to dehumanise him. L ike
his bike, he is descr ibed as ser ies of separate components, reducing him
to l i tt le more than an extension of his job. The ‘uniform ,’ the ‘polished
holster ,’ the ‘cap ,’ ‘braid cord ’ and, more ominously, the ‘revolver butt ’
te l l us nothing about this man himsel f except that he is a representat ive of
the law.
! In the end, he is a ‘shadow ’ that jeopardises the secure atmosphere
of home. The fact that he represents Br i t ish rule is a l luded to in the
imperia l measurements used by him to quant i fy the farm’s returns. The
‘acres, roods, and perches’ are more than just measurements – they are
c lear reminders of Br i t ish rule and the Heaney fami ly ’s place in the socia l
h ierarchy of Northern I re land. Furthermore, there is an obvious incongruity
between the rout ine nature of the constable’s v is i t and the fact that he is
armed. I t i s interest ing that the encounter with the constable should take
place on a farm, especia l ly when one considers that so much of the
v iolence and tension that has been part of I re land’s history has centred on
the struggle for land. One of the most upsett ing aspects of the encounter
with the constable is the manner in which i t involves the emasculat ion of
the father in the eyes of the son. The young speaker should never have
had to witness his father ’s ‘ fear ’ that the farm’s ‘Arithmetic ’ might not
sat is fy the constable’s inspect ion. In the fourth movement of the poem,
Heaney al lows the tension to mount. The speaker is complic i t in his
father ’s l ie and he imagines them being thrown in ja i l for not declar ing the
turnip patch:
! […] I assumed
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �9
Small gui l ts and sat
Imagining the black hole in the barracks.
He stood up, shi fted the baton-case
!The repet i t ion of the consonant sounds ‘b’ and ‘ck ’ re inforces the sense of
dread that this imagined place creates.
! The f i fth movement br ings with i t the rel ief at the constable’s
departure. However, we are afforded one last gl impse of the ‘baton case ,
’ the belt ’ and of course the ‘domesday book .’ The ‘Small gui l ts ’ of the
previous stanza seem to have pre-empted the mention of Doomsday. I t i s
typical of Heaney’s poetry that an al lus ion should be so mult i - layered.
Thoughts of gui l t and Doomsday are not only suggest ive of a Cathol ic
mindset , but a lso hint at the history of the Br i t ish Empire. The Domesday
Book was commiss ioned in 1085 by Wil l iam the Conqueror, who invaded
England in 1066. As the poem closes, the menacing al l i terat ion of the
bicycle that ‘ t icked, t icked, t icked ’ h ints at the t roubl ing t imes to come in
Northern I re land.
According to Daniel Tobin, ‘ the poem ends with the haunt ing sound
of the constable bicycle t ick ing down the road l ike a bomb about to go off .
An ai r of oppress ion hovers about the scene, and whi le we know that
nei ther the father nor the son wi l l respond v iolent ly to that oppress ion, the
poem nevertheless suggests that a v iolent repr isa l wi l l someday detonate
in this explosive socia l c l imate’ . Heaney is so successful in evoking tension
and a sense of dread that we share in the speaker ’s re l ief at the
constable’s departure.
!3. Essay Wri t ing
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �10
I f you are thinking of making reference to ‘A Constable Cal ls ’ in any essay
on Heaney’s poetry that you may be asked to make, you may wish to
consider some of the fol lowing points .
!a. The poem provides us with an interest ing perspect ive on the div is ions
that exist in Northern I r ish society.
b. Heaney makes interest ing use of sound devices such as a l l i terat ion and
consonance to heighten the tension surrounding the constable’s v is i t .
!c. Many of Heaney’s poems deal with the theme of v iolence. I t may be
interest ing to consider a comparison between this poem and ‘The Tol lund
Man’.
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Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �11
!Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedicat ion
for Mary Heaney
!I Sunl ight
!There was a sunl i t absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated i ts i ron,
water honeyed
!in the s lung bucket 5
and the sun stood
l ike a gr iddle cool ing
against the wal l
!of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuff led 10
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove
!sent i ts plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a f loury apron 15
by the window.
!Now she dusts the board
with a goose’s wing,
now s i ts , broad- lapped,
with whitened nai ls 20
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �12
!and measl ing shins:
here is a space
again, the scone r is ing
to the t ick of two clocks.
!And here is love 25
l ike a t insmith’s scoop
sunk past i ts gleam
in the meal-bin.
!
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Cr i t ical Commentary: Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedicat ion ( I ) Sunl ight
!1. Content
! In this beaut i fu l and heart -warming dedicatory poem, Heaney evokes
a sense of genuine love, a connect ion with a pass ing way of l i fe and a
chi ldl ike sense of secur i ty. The poem opens with a depict ion of the s i lence
that the poet associates with Mossbawn. In the yard, the pump is warmed
by the sunl ight whi le the water in the ‘slung bucket ’ i s ‘honeyed . ’ The
t imelessness of the scene is emphasised by the image of the sun standing
l ike a ‘griddle cool ing | against the wal l .’ Once the scene is set , the poet
moves into the inter ior of Mossbawn, where his aunt ’s ‘hands scuff led | Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �13
over the bakeboard, | the reddening stove . ’ As with the yard outs ide, the
poet emphasises the warmth of the place. A ‘plaque of heat ’ r i ses up
against her as she stands ‘ in a f loury apron | by the window . ’ In the f i fth
stanza, the poet ’s attent ion remains focused on his memories of his aunt
performing her household chores:
! Now she dusts the board
with a goose’s wing,
!While Mossbawn obviously occupies a specia l , even mythical place in
Heaney’s imaginat ion, he does not seek to embel l ish or a i rbrush his
memory of his aunt . She is descr ibed as being ‘broad-lapped ’ and as
having ‘measl ing shins . ’ In the same stanza, the speaker again emphasises
the peace and the ‘space ’ that th is place afforded him. The ‘ two clocks ’
that presumably symbol ise the past and the present ‘ t ick ’ in unison as past
and present are uni f ied by the poem’s upl i ft ing message. The f inal s tanza
of the poem aff i rms Heaney’s centra l bel ief that i t i s the ordinary,
everyday, domest ic qual i ty of h is love for Mossbawn and his aunt who
l ived there that makes i t so specia l :
! And here is love
l ike a t insmith’s scoop
sunk past i ts gleam
in the meal-bin.
!The ‘ t insmith’s scoop ,’ worn and in some respects unremarkable, becomes
a metaphor for the warmth and love that Mossbawn represents .
!2. Sty l is t ic Features
! Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �14
Heaney grew up on a County Derry farm not far f rom Mossbawn.
Mossbawn l ies 30 mi les north-west of Bel fast , between Cast ledawson and
Toome Br idge, a long the Bann River just north of where i t emerges f rom
Lough Neagh. Mossbawn holds a v i ta l place in Heaney’s imaginat ion. In
Preoccupat ions, Heaney has descr ibed the place as a ‘nave l ’ :
! I would begin with the Greek word, omphalos, meaning the navel ,
and hence the stone that marked the centre of the world,
and repeat it , omphalos, omphalos, omphalos, unti l its blunt a n d
fall ing music becomes the music of somebody pumping w a t e r a t
the pump outside our back door .
!In this poem, Heaney balances natural speech with a genuine dedicat ion
to what he has descr ibed as a ‘musical ly sat isfy ing order of sounds .’ As a
result , the reader feels that he or she is shar ing in what is , in the words of
the Swedish Academy, a moment of ‘ lyr ical beauty and ethical depth .’ The
int imate domest ic images that dominate the poem are matched by a r ich
and sensuous language that enables the reader to share ful ly in the
exper ience. In part icular, the al l i terat ive combinat ion of words such as
‘helmeted ,’ ‘heated ,’ ‘honeyed ,’ ‘slung ,’ ‘sun ,’ ‘stood ,’ ‘scuff led ’ and
‘stove ’ work to create an easygoing, re laxed sense of homely comfort . The
naturalness of the language is mirrored in the sensuous imagery used by
Heaney. The f i rs t two stanzas st ress the elemental place that Mossbawn
holds in the poet ’s imaginat ion. In fact , images associated with two of the
elements, water and sunl ight , dominate f i rs t s tanza:
! There was a sunl i t absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated i ts i ron,
water honeyed
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �15
!According to Michael Parker, Heaney’s search for ‘myth and symbol has
caused him to return f requent ly to the Mossbawn pump as a source for his
creat ive energy […] I t i s a recurr ing fecund image in several volumes. With
i ts phal l ic shape and l i fe giv ing water, i t symbol ises the creat ive union of
his parents , the male and female, the myster ious fus ion of f ix i ty and f lu idi ty
which gives the wor ld and Art i ts shape; i t i s a south Derry equivalent of
the Pieran spr ing.’
!! The inter ior wor ld at Mossbawn is no di fferent in that i t i s a lso
associated with a l i fe-giv ing, creat ive energy. The heat that emanates f rom
the stove is a reminder not only of the warmth that Heaney associates with
Mossbawn, but of his aunt ’s creat ive spir i t . The act of baking bread and
the s ight of the scones r is ing are obvious reminders of th is creat iv i ty.
There are f requent references to t ime throughout the poem. In the f i rs t
instance, the sun’s movement is l ikened to a ‘griddle cool ing | against the
wal l | of each long afternoon .’ Here, the long vowel sounds s low down the
progress ion of the poem and create a lazy, hazy feel ing that works to
capture a sense of t imelessness. As the poem reaches i ts conclusion, the
speaker refers to the scones ‘r is ing | to the t ick of two clocks .’ This is a
di ff icul t l ine to interpret . Heaney may have the not ion of past and present
in mind. Certa inly, Mossbawn, with i ts water pump, ‘goose’s wing ’ duster
and homemade baking, is a reminder of another t ime. However, the two
clocks t ick ing may also refer to the beat ing of the two hearts of aunt and
chi ld. Whatever the case, i t i s c lear that the poet is savour ing his memories
of the unspoken love and warmth that he exper ienced dur ing this per iod
in his l i fe . In the f inal instance, th is love is l ikened to a t insmith’s scoop:
! And here is love
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �16
l ike a t insmith’s scoop
sunk past i ts gleam
in the meal-bin.
!Tin is a soft metal that is re lat ively f ragi le. As such, i t i s a prefect metaphor
for the unassuming, unspoken love that l ies hidden, ‘sunk […] | in the
meal-bin. ’ The meal-bin l inks this metaphor to the k ind of nurtur ing and
sustaining love that Heaney associates with his aunt and Mossbawn.
!!3. Essay Writ ing
!I f you are thinking of making reference to ‘Mossbawn’, you may wish to
keep some of the fol lowing points in mind.
!a. In much of the poetry on the course, Heaney moves easi ly f rom the
homely images of farm and v i l lage to larger issues of history, language
and nat ional ident i ty, creat ing what he once cal led ‘ the music of what
happens’. ‘Mossbawn’ is an obvious an example of Heaney’s deep
connect ion to his roots in Derry.
!b. The language of the poem evokes the importance that Heaney attaches
to Mossbawn in a beaut i fu l manner.
!c. Despite the almost mythical s igni f icance that Heaney affords the people
and places surrounding Mossbawn, his depict ion remains at a l l t imes
bel ievable and real is t ic . !
! Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �17
!
! !
! !!!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �18
!!Crit ical Commentary: The Forge
! 1 . Content
This poem uses the relat ively fami l iar image of the blacksmith to cast l ight on the
poet ic process. The sonnet opens with a memorable l ine of poetry that provided
the t i t le to Heaney’s second publ ished col lect ion, Door into the Dark:
! Al l I know is a door into the dark.
!Drawing on his chi ldhood fascinat ion and memories with the local forge, the
poet paints a v iv id picture of th is place. We are told that outs ide, ‘o ld axles and
i ron hoops’ l ie ‘ rust ing’. Then, in the thi rd l ine, att racted by the ‘short -pi tched
r ing’ of the anvi l , the poet ’s attent ion is drawn into the ins ide of the forge. One
can imagine the young poet ’s eyes adjust ing to the darkness of the forge, which
is i l luminated br ief ly by an ‘unpredictable fantai l of sparks ’. Al though the speaker
does not see the anvi l , he feels that i t ‘must be somewhere in the centre’ :
! Horned as a unicorn, at one end square,
Set there immovable: an al tar
!The references to the ‘unicorn’ and the ‘a l tar ’ convey the almost mythical , even
sacred, l ight in which the young poet v iews the workings of the forge.
! In the ninth l ine, the poet turns his attent ion to the smith. We learn that he
‘expends himsel f in shape and music ’. This is a rough, powerful man whose
physical presence is palpable. A man f rom another era, he is ‘ leather-aproned’,
has ‘hai rs in his nose’ and ‘grunts ’ at the pass ing ‘ t raff ic ’. The poem ends with a
c lear aff i rmat ion of the smithy’s mastery of his art : he beats ‘ real i ron out , to work
the bel lows’.
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �19
2 . Sty l is t ic Features
!This poem is one of the most memorable examples of Heaney’s meditat ive sty le.
From a st r ict ly formal point of v iew, ‘The Forge’ is a sonnet. However, the poem
undermines the convent ional sonnet form in that both the shape and the rhyming
scheme of ‘The Forge’ depart f rom the typical sonnet. In the poem, the forge
becomes an al legory or symbol for the art is t ic process in general and the art of
wr i t ing poetry in part icular. The sty l is t ic complexi ty of the poem can at f i rs t be
seen in the opening l ine, where the internal rhymes and hal f rhymes that exist
between such words as ‘know’ and ‘door ’ and ‘door ’ and ‘dark ’ create a a
memorable interplay that engages the reader ’s attent ion f rom the outset . The
emphasis on sound cont inues throughout the rest of the poem. Notice how the
‘short -pi tched’ descr ipt ion of the sound of the hammer st r ik ing the anvi l evokes
in i ts consonance the sound of metal on metal . This act ion leads to ‘an
unpredictable fantai l of sparks ’. Here, Heaney l inks sound to the unpredictable
nature of the beauty that resul ts f rom art is t ic creat ion. The v i ta l energy that
capt ivates the young poet is captured in the ‘h iss ’ of the ‘new shoe’ as i t
‘ toughens in water ’.
!At the heart of th is process l ies the anvi l and the f igure of the blacksmith. Whi le
Heaney goes out of his way to st ress the sacred, unfathomable nature of what this
man achieves, he is eager to emphasise his earthy ordinar iness. What this man
does is c loaked in darkness and thereby shrouded in mystery. For a br ief moment
in the sonnet, the associat ions between the smithy’s work, the unicorn of c lass ical
mythology and even the sacramental a l tar lend him a pr iest - l ike aspect . I t i s as i f
he is a holy man transubstant iat ing the common and even banal occurrences of
everyday l i fe into some kind of raref ied artefact . However, Heaney quick ly
counters his inst inct ive urge to glor i fy the art isan by descr ibing him in the most
ordinary of ways.
!At the end of the poem, the speaker emphasises the secular rather than spir i tual
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �20
aspect of the blacksmith ’s work . Ul t imately, the smith does not cast any
i l luminat ion on l i fe , but rather beats ‘ real i ron out ’. The ‘ real i ron’ is the end
product , whi le the unknowable and ul t imately indescr ibable creat ive inspirat ion
remains deep In the darkness of the forge. The correspondence between the
‘shape and music ’ that Heaney draws our attent ion to in the sestet h ighl ights
both the abstract and concrete nature of creat ion. The ‘shape’ of the art i f ice
emphasises i ts concrete real i ty, whi le i ts ‘music ’ is i ts abstract nature.
!The forge and the smithy have longstanding associat ions with art is t ic endeavour
in both c lass ical and contemporary l i terature. In his famous poem ‘Sai l ing to
Byzant ium’, W.B. Yeats celebrates the ancient Byzant ine goldsmiths, whi le Homer
devotes a famous passage in the Odyssey to the story of Hephaestus, the
blacksmith to the gods. In A Portra i t of the Art is t as a Young Man , James Joyce’s
Stephen Dedalus promised to ‘ forge in the smithy of [h is] soul the uncreated
conscience of [h is] race’. However, perhaps i t i s Shakespeare’s ‘quick forge and
working-house of thought ’ in Henry V that Heaney has in mind in this poem.
!Final ly, i t i s interest ing that the poem ends with a warning of sorts . Al though
the poet emphasises the power and mystery of the art i f icer ’s achievement, he
also acknowledges the threats to his existence that l ie beyond the forge. Outs ide,
‘a c latter | Of hoofs ’ is now but a distant memory and the t raff ic that f lashes by
reminds us of a faster modern world that has l i t t le need for the sk i l l s of the
blacksmith. Of course, i t i s not di ff icul t t o see that poetry faces s imi lar threats to
i ts existence f rom the modern world.
!!!!!!!!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �21
3. Essay Wri t ing
!I f you are thinking of making reference to ‘The Forge’ in any response to
Heaney’s poetry that you may be asked to make, you may wish to keep the
fol lowing points in mind.
!a. Heaney makes use of the sonnet form in this poem. I t may be possible to
compare and contrast the form of this poem with the other poems on the course.
b. Heaney is interested in the art is t ic process. In this respect , you may be able to
devote an ent i re paragraph to this aspect of Heaney’s wr i t ing. I t might be useful
to compare this poem with ‘The Harvest Bow’.
c . This is a complex and interest ing poem that is r ich in c lever language devices
and l i terary a l lus ion.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �22
��� !!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �23
��� !!!!!!
��� !!!!!! Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �24
Critical Commentary: Bogland
! 1. Content
!In 1969, Heaney read The Bog People, a study of the discoveries made by the Danish
archaeologist P.V. Glob, which had a profound influence on his work. A close examination of
Heaney’s earlier poetry demonstrates clearly the extent to which he was influenced by
Glob’s writing. However, even before Heaney first read The Bog People, he was using bog
imagery as a metaphor for the elemental. ‘Bogland’ opens with a negative statement that
seems designed to offer an alternative to our traditional image of the wide, sweeping
prairies of North America:
We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening –
!Instead of wide-open spaces, the countryside offers us a landscape where ‘the eye
concedes to | [the] Encroaching horizon’. In the second stanza, Heaney develops this idea
further. The reflection of the sun setting over a mountain lake, or a ‘tarn’, is likened to
‘cyclops’ eye’. Where the American prairies contain vast stretches of unfenced country, the
Irish alternative is ‘bog that keeps crusting | Between the sights of the sun’. The third stanza
marks the beginning of a series of examples that demonstrate the natural, cultural, historical
and social importance of bogland. The ‘skeleton | Of the Great Irish Elk’, which the poet
describes as being ‘An astounding crate full of air’, has been found buried in the bog. The
Great Irish Elk, or Giant Deer, was a species of Megaloceros and one of the largest deer
that ever lived. While its range extended across Eurasia, it is in the boglands of Ireland that
the greatest numbers of these creatures have been found. In the fourth stanza, Heaney
mentions the bog butter. In some cases, churns and wooden containers of butter dating
back over three hundred years have been found in the bogs. The high level of acidity in
bogs acts as a preservative that previous generations valued highly. In the speaker’s
opinion, the bog itself is:
[…] kind, black butter
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �25
Melting and opening underfoot,
!Many students find this fifth stanza puzzling. When Heaney says that the bog is ‘Missing its
last definition | By millions of years’, he is referring to the fact that the bog will eventually
become coal. Over time, pressure will force the massive accumulation of dead plant life in
the peat into bitumen, which will eventually be transformed into coal. However, for the time
being, all that is to be found in these boglands is ‘waterlogged trunks | Of great firs’. In the
final two lines of the penultimate stanza, Heaney alludes once again to North America. In
the 1700s, the ‘pioneers’ were a groups of men and women who were the first Europeans
to settle the American frontier. Whereas the American pioneers extended the frontier
beyond the Appalachian Mountains and in later westward expansions beyond the
Mississippi River, the Irish pioneers ‘keep striking | Inwards and downwards’. The sense of
expanding into virgin territory that was so much a part of the American experience seems
absent here. Within the context of the Irish experience, ‘Every layer […] | Seems camped on
before’. In the poet’s imagination, the cultural depth that he associates with the bogholes is
mirrored by a physical one that extends as far as the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. The
hyperbole of the final line emphasises this depth further. The ‘wet centre’, we learn, ‘is
bottomless’.
!2. Stylistic Features
This poem, which is one of a number of poems by Heaney that are inspired by the wetlands
of Ireland and Northern Europe, concluded his 1969 collection, Door into the Dark. In his
presentation speech on the occasion of Seamus Heaney’s Nobel Prize in 1995, Östen
Sjöstrand, a member of the Swedish Academy, said that Heaney ‘has little time for the
Emerald Isle of the tourist brochures. For him Ireland is first and foremost The Bogland.’
Speaking about his own interest in boglands during a lecture called ‘Feeling into Words,’
given to the Royal Society of Literature in London on 17 October 1974, Heaney said:
I began to get an idea of bog as the memory of the landscape, or
as a landscape that remembered everything that happened in and to
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �26
it. In fact, if you go round the National Museum in Dublin, you will
realize that a great proportion of the most cherished material
heritage of Ireland was found in a bog.\]
!He also added that he:
! had been reading about the frontier and the west as an important
myth in the American consciousness, so I set up – or rather, laid
down – the bog as an answering Irish myth.
!According to Neil Corcoran, this poem can be regarded as a kind of ‘answering Irish poem
to Theodore Roethke’s American “In Praise of Prairie”, in which “Horizons have no
strangeness to the eye”, and “distance is familiar as a friend. | The feud we kept with space
comes to an end”.’
!Perhaps the most striking stylistic feature of the poem is the manner in which Heaney’s
mastery of form mirrors his descriptions of the bog. Run-on lines, metre and rhythm
combine to produce memorable sound patterns that capture fully the sense of the bog.
The run-on lines in particular help to create a sense of the interconnected layers of bog that
connect the present with the past and store a wealth of culture and history:
! The ground itself is kind, black butter
Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
!According to Edna Longley, ‘The poem alternates ampler development with sharp
insertions. Thus the abrupt “They’ll never dig coal here” interrupts assonances which imitate
the wet softness of bog “Melting and opening underfoot”. “Bogland” might be called not
so much “a prospect of the mind” (to use Heaney’s favourite Wordsworthian phrase for
poet landscape) as a prospecting of the mind.’ For Heaney, the bog is a mythological
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �27
landscape, a symbol of cultural identity and race memory. In this respect, he is heavily
influenced by the writings of the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. This revolutionary and
extremely influential thinker founded a type of psychoanalysis known as analytical
psychology. Jung was virtually alone amongst 19th-century thinkers in believing that human
beings had placed far too much emphasis on science and needed to return to the realms
of the mythological and the spiritual in order to obtain a true understanding of what
defines our humanity. In particular, Jung believed that beneath the personal unconscious
lay the collective unconscious. According to Jung, this collective unconscious could be
inherited as a race memory and passed on from generation to generation. In Heaney’s
imagination, the bog acts as a storehouse for our collective unconscious. Speaking directly
about this poem, Heaney has said: The title of the poem refers to the bogs I knew while I
was growing up and the stories I had heard about the things that could be preserved in
the bog such as supplies of butter that were kept there, and about the things that were
even more astonishing to a child, such as the skeleton of an Irish elk which our neighbours
had dug out. In the same address, he emphasised the lifelong hold that the bogland has
held on his imagination:
! When I was a child and an adolescent I lived among peat-diggers
and I also worked in the peat bog myself. I loved the structure the
peat bank revealed after the spade had worked its way through the
surface of the peat. I loved the mystery and silence of the place
when the work was done at the end of the day and I would stand
there alone while the larks became quiet and the lapwings started
calling, while a snipe would suddenly take off and disappear...
!In one respect, it is not surprising that Heaney should identify so strongly with the boglands
of Ireland. In 1969, the date of the poem’s publication, Derry’s Bogside was at the centre of
the civil rights marches in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, the English word ‘bog’ comes
from the Irish for ‘soft’. However, in English the word has often been a synonym for
backwardness, shame and even filth. ‘The bog’ is slang for a toilet and ‘a bogger’ is often
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �28
used as an insult in Hiberno-English. Yet Heaney dismisses such connotations for a view of
the bog that is altogether more favourable.
!!3. Essay Writing
!If you think you would like to make reference to ‘Bogland’ in any response to Heaney’s
poetry that you may be asked to make, you may wish to keep the following
points in mind.
!a. The poem is one of two poems by Heaney on the course that have the bog as their
central metaphor . As such, you may wish to compare this poem to ‘The
Tollund Man’.
!b. The language and metre of the poem attempt to capture the sense of the Irish bog.
!c. Although Heaney is not an overtly political poet, it is possible to assign political
significance to this and Heaney’s other bog poem on the course. It might be possible to
mention this in a paragraph on Heaney’s attitude to violence.
!!!!!!!!!!!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �29
!
�
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �30
!
�
!!!!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �31
�
!!!!!!!! 1 . Content
____________________________________________________________
Heaney was inspired to wr i te this poem after he had read The Bog People,
wr i tten by the Danish archaeologist P.V. Glob and publ ished by Faber &
Faber in 1969.
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �32
Speaking of this poem, Heaney has said that he was drawn to the
descr ipt ion of the v iolence and def ini te sense of place as out l ined by
Glob. The fol lowing is a br ief
extract f rom Glob’s book:
! An ear ly spr ing day – 8 May 1950. Evening was gather ing over
Tol land Fen in Bjaeldskov Dal . Momentar i ly, the sun burst in , br ight
and yet subdued, through a gate in blue thunderclouds in the west ,
br inging everything myster iously to l i fe . The evening st i l lness was o n l y
broken, now and again, by the grat ing love-cal l of the snipe. T h e d e a d
man, too, deep down in the amber-brown peat , seemed to h a v e c o m e
al ive. He lay on his damp bed as though as leep, rest ing on his s ide,
the head incl ined a l i t t le forward, arms and legs bent . H i s f a c e w o r e a
gent le express ion – the eyes t ight ly c losed, the l ips soft ly pursed, as in
s i lent prayer. I t was as though the dead man’s soul had for a moment
returned f rom another
wor ld, through the gate in the western sky.
!!Heaney’s poem opens with a commitment by the speaker that someday he
‘wi l l go to Aarhus’. The purpose of th is intended v is i t i s to see the ‘peat-
brown head’, the ‘eyel ids ’ and the ‘pointed sk in cap’ of the Tol lund Man.
Then, in the next stanza, the poet imagines ‘ the f lat country nearby |
Where they dug him out ’. In the f inal l ines of the second stanza, the
contents of the dead man’s stomach are envis ioned by the poet in a lmost
forensic detai l . In the thi rd stanza, the man’s naked vulnerabi l i ty is
juxtaposed in a shocking fashion with the evidence of his execut ion:
! Naked except for
The cap, noose and girdle,
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �33
I wi l l s tand a long t ime.
Br idegroom to the goddess,
The f inal l ine of the thi rd stanza casts l ight on the reason for this man’s
death: he was offered up as a sacr i f ice, or as a ‘Br idegroom to the
goddess’. In keeping with the fact that th is act of sacr i f ice was intended to
form part of a fert i l i ty r i te , the language in the fourth stanza becomes
more sexual in nature. We learn that the earth goddess ‘ t ightened her
torc ’ and then opened the ground to envelop him, her ju ices ( the acidi ty
of the water in the bog) preserv ing his body unt i l i t becomes in the poet ’s
imaginat ion a ‘sa int ’s kept body’. Where this man once lay deep in the
bog, ‘h is s ta ined face’ now ‘Reposes at Aarhus’.
!In the s ixth stanza, the poet te l ls us that he ‘could r isk blasphemy’ and
‘Consecrate’ the bog. Unusual ly, given the pagan nature of the r i tual that
led to the Tol lund Man’s death, the language used here is overt ly
Chr ist ian. The prayer that the speaker feels that he would l ike to intone
concerns the germinat ion or reanimat ion of the ‘Stockinged corpses’ of
‘ labourers ’ who died as a result of a Black and Tans atroci ty in Northern
I re land dur ing the 1920s. In the next stanza, Heaney provides us with a
ser ies of disturbing gl impses into the level of the v iolence that was meted
out to these brothers . We learn that their ‘sk in and teeth’ f lecked the
s leepers of the ra i l road for ‘mi les a long the l ines’. Then,
in an abrupt and jarr ing change that l inks the pl ight of these four young
brothers to that of the Tol lund Man, we are t ransported back in t ime to the
day when he ‘ rode the tumbri l ’ on his way to certa in death. In an almost
incantatory fashion, the poet then l is ts the names ‘Tol lund’, ‘Graubal le ’
and ‘Nebelgard’, a l l wel l -known s i tes where sacr i f ic ia l v ict ims have been
found.
!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �34
In the f inal s tanza, the speaker te l ls us that he imagines he wi l l feel a
st range sense of aff in i ty with the ‘old man-k i l l ing par ishes’. Such a sense of
k inship that wi l l cause him to ‘ feel lost , | Unhappy and at home’ results ,
one can only imagine, f rom the shared history of v iolent sacr i f ice that
exists between Northern I re land and Jut land.
! 2 . Sty l is t ic Features
____________________________________________________________
This is a complex poem that both rewards and demands our c lose
attent ion. In the poem, the Tol lund Man is emblematic of the v ict imisat ion
and v iolence that have dominated recent history in Northern I re land.
Östen Sjöstrand, a member of the Swedish Academy who awarded Heaney
the Nobel Pr ize in 1995, has said of ‘The Tol lund Man’ that ‘ in his f igure
Heaney conjures forth, brutal ly and movingly, a cul ture that is both al ien
and famil iar, a dist inct ive subject of r i tual sacr i f ice, human voices s i lenced
by the boggy landscape’. From the outset there are obvious paral le ls
between the r i tual is t ic v iolence that led to this man’s brutal death and the
awful v iolence that has been part of I re land’s history. The poem was
inspired by the accounts of the r i tual is t ic deaths that Heaney read in the
late 1960s. According to the poet:
the unforgettable photographs of these v ict ims blended in
[h is] mind with photographs of atroci t ies , past and present , in
the long r i tes of I r ish pol i t ical and rel igious st ruggles.
!Archaeology and the act of digging have fascinated Heaney throughout
his poet ic career. In this poem, Heaney imaginat ively digs down through
the layers of the past in order to cast l ight on the present . The l inks that
exist between the v iolence that led to the Tol lund Man’s death and
I re land’s sad history are many. Fi rst ly, th is man was sacr i f iced to a female
goddess as part of a fert i l i ty r i te . The mythology surrounding the I r ish
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �35
Republ ican cause has a lways ident i f ied I re land as a feminine presence.
Secondly, the rel igious nature of his sacr i f ice is mirrored in the sectar ian
nature of the v iolence that has dogged Northern I re land’s recent past . The
rel igious imagery in the poem is part icular ly interest ing. Through the
re l ig ious symbol i sm, Heaney sk i l fu l l y in te rweaves pagan r i tua l w i th
Chr ist iani ty in general and Cathol ic ism in part icular. The f i rs t instance of
re l igious imagery in the poem is to be found in the poet ’s promise to
undertake a pi lgr image to v iew the Tol lund Man’s ‘kept body’. In this
manner, the Tol lund Man is ident i f ied with those saints who appear to
have been incorrupt ible. The speaker te l ls us that he is wi l l ing to ‘ r isk
blasphemy’ by venerat ing this pagan f igure. This , he hopes, wi l l resul t in a
consecrat ion of the land, which in turn wi l l lead to a t ransformation of the
‘cauldron bog’ of internecine v iolence into a ‘holy ground’ of common
purpose. In order to emphasise the rel igious s igni f icance of the Tol lund
Man, Heaney capita l ised the ‘h ’ in ‘Him’ in the s ixth stanza. Given that the
Tol lund Man was sacr i f iced as part of a fert i l i ty r i tual of renewal and
revival , the speaker feels he can go so far as to hope for a miraculous
germinat ion of the dead v ict ims of v iolence in his country.
! The paral le ls between these two parts of Europe, separated by
cul ture, t ime and geography, are such that the poet feels ‘at home’ in the
‘man-k i l l ing par ishes’. In this sense, the poem does appear to offer a smal l
amount of hope for an end to the v iolence that has plagued modern
I re land. According to Andrew Foley: I f Heaney’s work general ly emphasises
t h e i n e ff i c a c y o f C h r i s t i a n s y m b o l s s u c h a s t h e c ro s s t o p ro v i d e
consolat ion or resolut ion of a conf l ict in which Chr ist iani ty is after a l l a
contr ibut ing factor, then a poem l ike ‘The Tol lund Man’ may be regarded
as Heaney’s attempt to offer more ‘bef i tt ing emblems of advers i ty ’ to help
understand and counter the ‘ rage’ of I r ish rel igious and pol i t ical enmity.
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �36
I t i s c lear that Heaney is both repulsed and fascinated by the Tol lund Man.
The depict ion of his persevered body, which at f i rs t seems to emphasise
his rest ful nature, y ie lds to the forensic , even voyeur ist ic , descr ipt ion of his
innards:
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,
!The harsh cacophonous sound of words such as ‘Caked’ and ‘stomach’
st resses the disgust the poet feels . Furthermore, the idea that we are pr ivy
to this man’s ins ides cal ls attent ion to the v iolat ion that is part of such
v iolence. Other Northern I r ish poets such as Michael Longley have made
s imi lar points about v iolence. I t i s as though human dignity is effaced by
the cruelty of v iolence. Final ly, when one considers the histor ical changes
that have swept as ide the fert i l i ty r i tuals in which this man part ic ipated, his
death seems part icular ly point less . Could Heaney be suggest ing that any
v iolent death for any cause, re l igious or otherwise, is point less?
!3. Essay Wri t ing
!I f you think that you would l ike to make reference to ‘The Tol lund Man’ in
any response to Heaney’s poetry that you may be asked to make, you may
wish to keep some of the fol lowing points in mind.
!a. This is a complex poem that draws on the past in order to provide us
with a powerful plat form from which the poet attempts to ident i fy centra l
t ruths about the I r ish exper ience.
b. This is one of two bog poems on the Leaving Cert i f icate course. As
such, i t may be useful to devote a paragraph to a comparison with
‘Bogland’.
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �37
c. Heaney’s poetry f requent ly deals with v iolence and rel igion. I t may be
possible to devote an ent i re paragraph to these themes in his poetry
and to draw some interest ing paral le ls between ‘A Constable Cal ls ’ and
‘The Tol lund Man’.
!!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �38
�
! Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �39
�
!!Crit ical Commentary: The Harvest Bow
! 1 . Content
!!This deeply personal poem explores the poet ’s memory of his father
making a harvest bow. As the father works s i lent ly on the bow, i t i s as i f
aspects of his personal i ty are incorporated into i t :
! As you pla i ted the harvest bow
You impl icated the mel lowed s i lence in you
In wheat that does not rust
!The ‘wheat that does not rust ’ i s a reminder of the way in which the bow is
an enduring part of the natural cycle.
!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �40
In the next l ine, the bow ‘br ightens’, becoming transformed in the
poet ’s imaginat ion into a ‘knowable corona, | A throwaway love-knot of
st raw’. The second stanza focuses on his father ’s hands, and the man’s
connect ion to the natural cycle is emphasised once again. These hands
have worked on ‘ashplants and cane st icks ’ and ‘gamecocks’. Such was his
father ’s sk i l l that his ‘ f ingers moved somnambulant ’ on the harvest bow. In
the f inal couplet of th is stanza, the poet takes the bow and holds in i t h is
hand. Imagining that he is touching the i tem as a bl ind person would read
‘brai l le ’, he manages to glean or gather unsaid t ruths.
! In the thi rd stanza, the poet looks through the ‘golden loops’ of the
harvest bow and in the process a door into the past is opened. Images of
his re lat ionship with his father are brought to the fore. He can see the two
of them walk ing ‘between the ra i lway s lopes | Into an evening of long
grass and midges’. On a general level , an auct ion not ice on an outhouse
wal l reminds us of the type of change that the bow in his father ’s lapel
seems to defy. However, th is auct ion not ice is a lso a reminder of a
part icular ly painful moment in Heaney’s ear ly l i fe . Fol lowing the death of
his younger brother, Chr istopher, who was k i l led by a car when he ran out
f rom behind a bus, the Heaneys sold the fami ly home at Mossbawn.
!Heaney has said that the move f rom Mossbawn s ignal led the end of his
chi ldhood. Warmer memories dominate the fourth stanza, where the poet
remembers f ishing tr ips with his father. The joy of these out ings was such
that the young speakerant ic ipated the longed-for l i ft to his spir i ts that he
associated with these evenings. The poet then recal ls the t ick ing sound of
his father ’s s t ick as i t ‘Beats out of t ime’. In the c los ing couplet of the
stanza, the speaker pictures his father once more as a quiet ‘ tongue-t ied’
man working on the straw of the harvest bow. The i ta l ic ised opening l ine
of the f inal s tanza al ludes to the poet Coventry
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �41
Patemore, who cla imed that the purpose of art was ‘ to br ing peace’. The
speaker feels that th is could be the ‘motto’ of th is ‘ f ra i l ’ yet obviously
powerful harvest bow that he has ‘pinned up’ on the ‘dresser ’. In the f inal
l ines of the poem, the poet attempts to make concrete the relat ionship
between the natural and human worlds. The bow is l ikened to ‘ the spir i t of
the corn’ or rabbit that has s l ipped i ts ‘snare’ and eluded capture.
!!2. Sty l is t ic Features
!!This beaut i fu l memory poem is one of Heaney’s most anthologised pieces
of wr i t ing. The bow that occasions the poet ’s heart fe l t t r ibute to his father
a lso creates a number of tangible l inks with such var ied themes as the
pass ing of t ime, nature and the worth and purpose of art is t ic endeavour.
In Robert F. Garratt ’s opinion, ‘ the poem draws i ts powerful effect f rom a
del icate conceit , which develops throughout the piece f rom what i t i s in
actual i ty – a woven badge of st raw s igni fy ing the harvest – to what i t
represents symbol ical ly ’. The bow is of course a powerful and interest ing
metaphor. Fi rst ly, i t represents a l ink with the t radit ions of the rural
community. The bow was made in celebrat ion of the bounty of the harvest
a n d o f t e n h u n g a b o v e t h e k i t c h e n d o o r. Th e a d v e n t o f i n t e n s i v e ,
mechanised farming and the waves of migrat ions f rom the land that have
taken place s ince Heaney wrote the poem have threatened the way of l i fe
that the bow represents . For Heaney, the bow is a potent reminder of our
connect ion to the land. In the poet ’s imaginat ion, the art of making the
bow provides a l ink to a t ime when the ‘spir i t of the corn’ was an integral
part of the rural community ’s l i fe . Such pre-Chr ist ian r i tuals are of course
now lost to us, but the bow, made f rom ‘wheat that does not rust ’, i s a
symbol of our connect ion to such t radit ions.
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �42
! Secondly, an interest ing aspect of the bow is the manner in which i t
reveals aspects of Heaney’s re lat ionship with his father. Not ice how the
speaker never recal ls any instance of di rect communicat ion with this father.
The bow, however, a l lows the poet to form a connect ion with his father
that t ranscends the spoken word. This ‘ f ra i l device’ communicates an
‘unsaid’ message of love and tradit ion. This message is l ikened by the
poet to a form of ‘brai l le ’ that , when understood, a l lows him to glean ‘ the
unsaid off the palpable’. This ‘unsaid’ knowledge seems to speak of the
enduring value of community and tradit ion. Despite the reminders of
change that are present in the poem in the form of ‘o ld beds’, ‘p loughs in
hedges’ and even ‘An auct ion not ice’, the ‘or iginal townland’ that inspires
Heaney’s imaginat ion st i l l ex ists . The separateness of the father and son,
wh ich i s emphas ised by the persona l pronouns ‘ You ’ and ‘Me’, i s
countered in the end by the inclus iveness and warmth that the bow
symbol ises. This inclus iveness is further expressed by the fact that in i ts
current incarnat ion, the bow seems to act as a symbol of the poet ’s love
for his wi fe:
! The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of th is f ra i l device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser –
!An interest ing aspect of the poem’s sty l is t ic features is the manner in
which the casual nature of the poem’s form creates the sense of the
speaker ’s mind wandering back through t ime. Whi le each of the f ive
stanzas rel ies on three rhyming couplets , the run-on l ines and lack of
emphat ic rhymes push the poem forward in a gent le, unforced manner.
However, despite the meandering nature of the poem, i ts f inal message is
c lear. Art is t ic endeavour, whether spoken or not , has the abi l i ty to
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �43
t ranscend div is ion. The reference to Coventry Patmore’s bel ief that the
‘end of art is peace’, which the poet feels ‘Could be the motto of th is f ra i l
device’, i s wonderful ly upl i ft ing.
!3. Essay Wri t ing
I f you are thinking of making reference to ‘The Harvest Bow’ in any
response to Heaney’s poetry that you may be asked to make, t ry to keep
the fol lowing points in mind.
!a. Th is poem is one of a number on the course that dea ls w i th
relat ionships. Given the predominance of th is theme in Heaney’s poetry,
you may wish to devote an ent i re paragraph to this aspect of h is work.
b. The poem’s form works to create the impress ion that the speaker ’s mind
is wandering back through the years .
c. I t has been said of Heaney’s poetry that he ‘ t reats of nature with a lover ’s
intensi ty ’. This poem embodies Heaney’s deep connect ion with the
natural wor ld.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �44
!Crit ical Commentary: The Underground
_______________________________________________________
See the text of the poem on p. 71.
1 . Content
____________________________________________________________
This poem, which was f i rs t publ ished in Heaney’s 1969 col lect ion, Stat ion
Is land,
has at i ts heart a c lever a l lus ion to the Greek myth of Orpheus and
Eurydice. In this
Greek myth, Orpheus marr ied the nymph Eurydice. A snake bite that
resul ted in
her death forced her to descend to the underworld. Orpheus was so
dist raught that
he descended into the underworld in order to beg for her re lease. This
descent into
the underworld is something only a smal l number of mortals have
successful ly done
in Greek mythology. When he was granted an audience with Hades and his
wi fe
Persephone, who ruled the underworld, Orpheus played a beaut i fu l ly
melancholy
melody on his lyre that melted the hearts of the k ing and queen of the
underworld.
Hades al lowed Orpheus to ascend f rom the underworld with his wi fe on
the proviso
that he not look at Eurydice direct ly. As the pair was leav ing the
underworld,
Orpheus glanced over his shoulder in the direct ion of Eurydice in order to
make
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �45
sure that she was in fact accompanying him. She was instant ly whisked
away and
condemned to remain forever in the underworld. When Orpheus made a
second
attempt at f reeing his wi fe, the Thracian maidens drowned out his music
and he was
k i l led and his lyre was carr ied to the heavens to become a constel lat ion. I t
may be
possible that Heaney had Georges Franju’s 1958 f i lm La Première Nuit in
mind when
he wrote this poem. In this f i lm, the story of Orpheus is retold through the
eyes of a
schoolboy in the modern sett ing of the Par is Métro.
In Heaney’s poem ‘The Underground’, the speaker and his wi fe assume the
roles
of modern-day Orpheus and Eurydice. The poem opens with a descr ipt ion
of the
pair in the ‘vaulted tunnel ’ of the Underground. The speaker ’s wi fe is
descr ibed
as wear ing her ‘going-away coat ’. Then, in an unusual s imi le, the poet
compares
himsel f to a ‘ f leet god’ gaining on her before she is ‘ turned to a reed’.
Perhaps the
poet is a l luding to the Greek myth of Syr inx. Syr inx was the daughter of
the minor
378 | Poems
deity and r iver god Ladon. She was chased by the god Pan, who was
enamoured with
her. Fr ightened, she cal led out to her father for help. In order to save her
f rom Pan,
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �46
he turned her into a water reed.
In the second quatra in, the poet descr ibes how his wi fe ’s coat buttons fe l l
off one
by one ‘ in a t ra i l | Between the Underground and the Albert Hal l ’. The thi rd
stanza
prov ides us w i th g l impses of the honeymooners ‘mooning around’
London, ‘ late for
the Proms’. There is a percept ible change in tone in the next l ine:
Our echoes die in that corr idor and now
The long vowel sounds of th is l ine create a haunt ing qual i ty that
emphasises the
passage of t ime. In the f inal couplet of the stanza, the poet sees himsel f
as a Hansel l ike
f igure who, fol lowing the buttons that his wi fe lost f rom her coat years
ear l ier,
retraces the path back to ‘a draughty lampl i t s tat ion’.
In the f inal l ines of the f inal s tanza, the poet descr ibes himsel f as being
tense as
he waits for his wi fe to return. Unl ike Orpheus in the underworld, he tel ls
us that he
is ‘damned’ i f he looks back.
2 . Sty l is t ic Features
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Heaney is fascinated by the moti f of the journey to the underworld. The
f igures of
Dante, Orpheus, Hermes and Virgi l , a l l of whom are associated with the
descent to
the underworld, have featured in his poetry. Of course, th is interest is a lso
found
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �47
in Heaney’s bog poems, where the speaker undertakes an excavat ion that
takes us
down through layers of soi l and history.
In ‘The Underground’, Heaney demonstrates his mastery of form and
sound.
The poem memoria l ises the Heaneys’ honeymoon in London in 1965. From
the
outset , the sounds in the poem match the poet ’s thematic concerns.
Not ice how in
the f i rs t l ine the long vowel sounds in the words ‘vaulted’ and ‘ tunnel ’
create an echo
that draws the reader ’s imaginat ion to an underground world of mystery:
There we were in the vaulted tunnel running,
This haunt ing qual i ty is balanced, however, by a sense of energy that
suggests
something important is going to happen. In fact , the f i rs t sentence of the
poem takes
the reader in a headlong rush through the f i rs t two quatra ins. The sparse
punctuat ion
Seamus Heaney | 379
( just two commas in eight l ines) barely gives us t ime to draw a breath. This
sense of
movement is further maintained by the sound patterns and clever use of
present and
past part ic iples in the second stanza. The present part ic iples ‘ running’,
‘ speeding’
and ‘gaining’ a l l create a sense of exci tement and movement. Meanwhi le,
the past
part ic iples ‘ japed’ and ‘ f lapped’ capture the sound of Heaney’s wi fe ’s coat
as the wind
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �48
rushes against i t . For anyone who has been in the London Underground,
the sensat ion
of rushing ai r that is created by the pressure of the t ra ins as they enter the
tunnel is
immediately brought to mind. Of course, th is unusual combinat ion of
present and
past part ic iples mirrors the poem’s preoccupat ion with the pass ing of
t ime.
An interest ing sty l is t ic feature of the poem is the manner in which Heaney
mixes
contemporary and even col loquial language with a l lus ions to Greek
mythology.
Obviously, the poem references the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but
there is a lso
the erot ic reference to Pan’s pursui t of Syr inx. Yet Heaney chooses to
couch these
references in language that can be descr ibed as playful . ( ‘There we were’,
‘And me,
me then’, ‘damned i f I look back’ ) .
F o r m o s t r e a d e r s , t h e m o s t t h o u g h t - p r o v o k i n g a s p e c t o f ‘ T h e
Underground’ is
the manner in which the poem draws attent ion to the pass ing of t ime. The
poem
o p e n s i n t h e Lo n d o n U n d e rg ro u n d o n t h e d a y o f t h e s p e a ke r ’s
honeymoon. As we
have discussed, the poem’s language captures the ant ic ipat ion and
exci tement of
that day. However, whi le the poem concludes in the same Underground
stat ion,
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �49
we cannot help but feel that much has changed. The energy and v i ta l i ty of
the f i rs t
s tanza have faded l ike ‘echoes’ in a ‘corr idor ’.
The inclus ive personal pronouns ‘we’ and ‘Our ’ are t ransformed in the f inal
s tanza to the indiv idual ‘ I ’ as the poet ends up in a wet and ‘draughty
lampl i t
s tat ion’. As the poem draws to a c lose, Heaney reminds the reader of the
or iginal
myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, though there is a t ragic reversal of that
myth in this
poem. In the end, i t i s the poet who is damned i f he looks back, not his
lover.
3 . Essay Wri t ing
____________________________________________________________
I f you are thinking of referr ing to ‘The Underground’ in a personal
response to
Seamus Heaney’s poetry, you may wish to keep some of the fol lowing
points in
mind.
380 | Poems
a. I t has been said of Heaney that for him, ‘myth expresses the past ’s
penetrat ion
of the present , the presentness of the past ’. This poem provides us with an
interest ing example of Heaney’s use of mythology.
b. The moti f of the underground appears in many of Heaney’s poems. As
such, i t
may be interest ing to compare this poem with ‘The Tol lund Man’ or
‘Bogland’.
c . Given that Heaney has wr i tten about his re lat ionship with his wi fe in ‘The
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �50
Skunk’, i t might be worthwhi le comparing or contrast ing that poem with
‘The
Underground’.
Cian Hogan English Notes Ⓒ 2013 �51