Seamus Heaney: Political Bias vs. Aestheticism of Literature

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Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 His Work 3.1 Political vs. Aesthetic 3.2 The Difference Between Poetry and Prose 4 Heaney's Stand 5 Sources

[edit] Early life

Seamus Heaney was born in 1939, on a farm in County Derry, Northern Ireland. He grew up west of Belfast in the farmlands. During this time American soldiers were stationed nearby, preparing for the eventual war with Hitler's army. In spite of his proximity to the world's conflict, he led a rather sheltered childhood. In his own words:

In the nineteen forties, when I was the eldest child of an ever-growing family (there would be nine in all) in rural County Derry, we crowded together in the three rooms of a traditional thatched farmstead and lived a kind of den-life which was more or less emotionally and intellectually proofed against the outside world. It was an intimate, physical, creaturely existence in which the night sounds of the horse in the stable beyond one bedroom wall mingled with the sounds of adult conversation from the kitchen beyond the other. (Hart 457)

It was perhaps this childhood sheltering that led him to write politically influenced poetry while still avoiding writing from the perspective of his own bias (Hart 458).

[edit] Career

Considering that he came from rural, catholic Northern Ireland, many thought he had come quite far. In 1966 he published his first book, Death of a Naturalist. Soon after, he published Door into the Dark (1969). These early works quickly established him as an important new author and poet. He became the professor of poetry at Oxford University in 1989 (Quinlan 1-2). In 1995, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. After receiving the Nobel Prize, some feared that he would fall victim to "Stockholm syndrome" and cease his progressive work as a poet. He himself was aware of this Nobel curse and would try to minimize the award by referring to it as "the N-word" and occasionally "the Stockholm thing." He avoided falling into the rut of an accomplished poet, fearing that his new found fame might serve only to distract him from his work. As opposed to resting from his work after winning the Nobel Prize, his career, if anything, only accelerated. He followed the prize by publishing The Spirit Level in 1996, a translation of Beowulf in 2000, and Electric Light in 2001. His other publications include: The Redress of Poetry in 1995, Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996, a translation of Ozef Kalda's poems (Diary of One Who Vanished) in 2000, Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001, and The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone in 2004 (Hart 456).

[edit] His Work

[edit] Political vs. Aesthetic

Similar to the self questioning style of other authors of the time, Heaney acknowledges the difficulties inherent to twentieth century poetry. Due to the increasing separations of poem, author, subject, and reader the meanings of a work are multiplied beyond its initial scope. This allowed for many more interpretations than would have otherwise been possible. As a result of this separation, Heaney constantly struggled with the ideas of literature as art verses the biased opinions of politics, while still attempting to record the effects of otherwise political movements (Williams 324). Heaney refused to choose sides in political conflicts. Rather, he preferred to directly seek a solution through the balancing of two positions. It was perhaps this mindset that led to his struggle between the beauty of a work and the political commitments of its author. While he felt the pressure of his audience to form such opinions within his work, he realized his own need for artistic expression. While he spoke on such matters that seemed completely political, he felt that they served as more of a distraction than as a viable topic for his work. Heaney supported his slant towards the more esthetic with the statement that "one of the first functions of a poem... is to satisfy a need in the poet" (Quinlan 4). By this, Heaney called his readers to realize that poetry should at times be interpreted outside of its own frame of history, and not bound to such a narrow interpretation based on the events of today. Heaney believes that the poet's role is to continue poetry through times of great political conflict, ensuring the survival of poetic expression. Kieran Quinlan states it as, "the political task of the poet is simply to be a poet" (Quinlan 2-4). Stephen James holds that Heaney's work is two-sided: one of political bias, and the other of poetic expression. It is this double meaning that allows for such varied interpretations of Heaney's work. Heaney uses these two sides as a shifting balance of influence and belief. Thus the resulting conflict isn't over positions on either side of his work, but rather a struggle for balance between the two ideals. He illustrates his own struggle between the artistic and political with the image of weighting scales. He struggles throughout his work with the pressure to weight the scale towards a specific side based on personal bias. It is this balancing through which he strives to gain the trust of his readers in the position of his poetry (James 2-3).

[edit] The Difference Between Poetry and Prose

Heaney believes that poetry is the nature of language to exceed itself, going beyond the linear bounds of its temporal frame. While the basis of an argument may well be intended for such limited interpretations, poetry surpasses such limitations by its linguistic over-achieving. Thus he substantiates that poetry's justification is its own poetic nature. Further, he maintains that by the nature of poetry, a poem gains for itself a transcended nature of interpretation, yielding not only to current political implications, but also to a life lived long past that of even its author. He recognizes that the nature of poetry warrants itself a sense of immortality and thus innumerable interpretations (James 3, 9). James seems to think that Heaney's prose over-works the use of simple metaphors, and thus launches itself past the direct interpretation that is generally acceptable for such works. James further contends that this may lead to interpretations Heaney didn't intend upon. Although this would be fine for the nature of poetry, it may not be quite as acceptable for the language of prose. James further explains Heaney's tendency within his prose towards a more figurative language by noting the resulting trust Heaney is able to gain from his readers. Throughout his works, Heaney refuses to value the artistic or political uses of language above the other, holding rather that a shifting between the two is a better use of language (James 4-8). Heaney's poetry, in the words of Daniel Tobin, "constitutes nothing less than the record of Heaney's quarrel with himself, a quarrel that begins in the poet's ambiguous and finally agnostic relationship to his home" (Hart 460). Tobin further stipulates that Heaney is seeking a balance, "between the claims of immanent earth and the spirit's aspiration to transcend those bounds" (Hart 460). In contrast to Tobin's view of Heaney's poetry, Hart states that Heaney often tries to unite "cosmic and earthly matters" through his poetry. "Watch sparks die in the ash pan, poke again,/ Think of dark matter in the starlit coalhouse," from "A Stove Lid for W. H. Auden" in District and Circle is an example of such a union. Heaney took the burning of coal in a stove and related it to forces at play deep in the cosmos ("dark matter" is invisible matter with a strong gravitational pull) (Hart 461).

[edit] Heaney's Stand

Heaney doesn’t take a stand against the purely political, nor does he stand against the purely artistic. He doesn’t wish to do away with either or any other differing or conflicting ideals. Rather, he wishes to draw them together into an agreeable balance. Hart states that, "Heaney stands for circling the differences, for bringing contraries together into a creative union" (Hart 459). This is to say that Heaney longs for the middle ground in all things social, political, and artistic. He longs for the ability to write unbiased poetry, and have it receive unbiased judgment. His overall longing throughout his struggle is to have his work transcend the limitations forced upon it by its own historical frame, independent of its own time.

[edit] Sources

• Gilbert, Roger. “Heaney, Seamus.” The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book Inc. © 2002. p.130.

• Hart, Henry. “Seamus Heaney: Circling Back.” Sewanee Review; Summer 2006, Vol. 114 Issue 3, 456-462.

• James, Stephen. “Seamus Heaney’s Sway.” Twentieth Century Literature; Fall 2005, vol. 51 Issue 3, 263-284.

• Quinlan, Kieran. “Tracing Seamus Heaney.” World Literature Today; Winter 1995, vol. 69 Issue 1, 63-68

• Williams, John. “British Poetry Since 1945: Poetry And The Historical Moment.” Encyclopedia of Literature And Criticism. Ed. Martin Coyle, Peter Garside, Malcolm Kelsall, and John Peck. Detroit: Gale Research Inc. 1991. 321, 324-325, and 329