Personal issues Flashcards
‘Between my finger and my thumb/the squat pen rests; snug as a gun’
Digging
- This use of word choice (‘gun’) shows the reader the idea Heaney views his words as a weapon. This could subtly link with the Irish troubles - he is against taking violence but wants to make a stance via his poetry.
- Furthermore, the idea of the squat pen resting shows the reader tha heaney believes writing to be natural.
- Lastly, the use of the rhyme ‘thumb’ and ‘gun’ creates a ‘beat’ in the poem, a similar beat to the rhythmn of the act of digging.
‘Bends low comes up twenty years later’
Digging
-This shows the idea that Heaney has seen his father age around digging.
‘I’ll dig with it’
Digging
- This shows the idea that Heaney believes his father and grandfather made their mark on the world through their agricultural world.
- Earlier in the poem, Heaney felt guilt that he was’t following the footsteps of them (seen through the contrast between his father digging and Heaneys pen), yet towards the end, he has come to peace with his difference. Heaney claims that he will make his own mark on this world via his poetry.
Use of senses - ‘Clean rasping noise’ + ‘The cold smell of potato mould’
Digging
- This use of senses allows for stronger imagery.
Digging Rhyme scheme
Digging
- The Rhyming is primarily in the first two stanzas and then also in the last two. This creates a cyclical nature of the poem.
‘By God the old man could handle a spade/just like his old man’
Digging
- Initiates a change of time
- The word ‘digging’ is used 3 times in the poem - each to mark a lifetime.
‘I will feel lost, unhappy and at home’
The Tollund Man
- Heaney is feeling lost and unhappy due to the sadness he feels at the Tollund Mans brutal death.
- However, he feels at home as he sees the sacrifical killing similar to the killing during the troubles in Ireland.
- Yet, it could be argued that Heaney feels lost due to the fact that he feels as if there is no where he can go without violence.
‘Trove of Turfcutters’
The Tollund man
- This is somewhat ambigious
- This could mean that the Tollund Man’s body would have been something of a treasure to the turfcutters who may have found him.
- However, joining with the idea of the Bog as a Goddess, it could be said that Heaney (due to praying to the body) may be praying for the bog Goddess to protect his family (the turfcutters) from the Troubles.
‘She tightened her torc on him and opened her fen, working him to a saint kept body’
‘I could risk blasphemy’
The Tollund Man
- This introduces the idea of the Bog being a Goddess who make everything she consumes God-like aswell.
- Heaney then begins somewhat praying to the Bog Body and the Bog that it will protect his family. Due to Heaneys catholic background, he feels as if he could risk blasphemy, as Catholicism deems pagan worship as blasphemous.
‘Our Holy ground and pray/him to make germinate’
The Tollund Man
- It is arguable that Heaney is referring to God as ‘him’ and by praying that God ‘makes germinate’ is praying he lets the Tollund man fully return back to the earth without preservation, and to allow him to move on from the conflict of this World.
‘To a coarse croaking I had not heard before’
Death of a Naturalist
- Puberty
‘Daddy frog’ + ‘Mammy frog’
Death of a Naturalist
- Shows the childlike language used by Heaney to show the divide in age
‘Flax had rotted there’ + ‘Festered’ + ‘Punishing sun’
Death of a Naturalist
- This use of language shows the underlyign violence of the Irish civil war that a child may be ignorant of.
‘Then one hot day’
Deaht of a Naturalist
- This acts at the marking point of development into manhood and the shift in the poem.
‘The slap and pop were obscene threats’
‘Mud grenades’
Death of a Naturalist
- This represents the war during the time which exposure to may have forced Heaney to mature faster.
