Study Clix Explains: Seamus Heaney

Introduction

• Podcast dedicated to Junior Cycle and Leaving Cert notes.
• Focus on Heaney's poems on the Leaving Cert English syllabus.

Overview

• Heaney's significance: Nobel Prize winner, cultural pride.
• 13 poems on the course; focus on 4 in-depth, 2 briefly for H1 result.
• Structure: Background, poetic influences, analysis of poems, exam tips.

Heaney's Background and Poetic Influences

• Born in County Derry in 1939; farm life until 1953.
• Influence of his brother's death (Midterm Break).
• Personal and political themes due to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
• Life stages: Derry, Belfast, Republic of Ireland, America.
• Relationships: Poems on wife Marie (The Underground, The Skunk, Tate's Avenue), father (A Constable Calls, The Harvest Bow, The Pitchfork).
• Writing about the creative process: The Forge, The Pitchfork.
• Key roles and accolades: Harvard, Oxford, Arts Council, theater involvement, French Ministry of Culture, Nobel Prize.

Key Stylistic Features

• Heaney's frequent use of four-line stanzas.
• Classical allusions and mythology.
• Rich language with compound adjectives.
• Poems often feel as if halfway through a conversation.

Poems Analysis

Bogland

• Themes: The natural landscape, Irish identity.
• Key images: The bog, elk, butter, pioneers digging down, bottomless center.
• Stylistic features: Contrast, mystery, mythology, collective pronoun 'we', self-assured tone.

The Tollund Man

• Themes: Violence, death, rebirth.
• Structure: Three sections; visiting Aarhus, linking bog bodies to Irish conflict, imagining ritual death.
• Descriptive imagery: Peach brown head, skin cap, goddess Nerthus.
• Violent imagery: Ambushed flesh, corpses on railway tracks.
• Tone: Wistful, revulsion, unhappy, critical.

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication

1. Sunlight

• Themes: Domesticity, love.
• Key images: Sunlight, baking, kitchen, clocks, sunk scoop.

2. A Constable Calls

• Themes: Power structures, violence, oppression.
• Key images: Constable's attributes, boots, symbols of power.
• Stylistic features: Synecdoche, direct speech, tone of fear and threat.

A Call

• Themes: Love, mortality.
• Key images: Gardening father, clocks, morality play.
• Stylistic features: Direct speech, tone of poignancy and melancholy.

The Harvest Bow

• Themes: Father-son relationship, craftsmanship.
• Key images: Wheat bow, work-worn hands, metaphorical snare.
• Stylistic features: Steady rhyme, enjambment, nostalgic tone.

The Pitchfork

• Themes: Admiration of father, art of writing.
• Key images: Pitchfork, warrior or athlete father, flying pitchfork.
• Stylistic features: Compound adjectives, admiration tone.

The Forge

• Structure: Petrarchan sonnet, iambic pentameter.
• Themes: Creativity, lost arts.
• Key images: Door into dark, anvil as altar, traffic and hoofs.
• Stylistic features: Sound techniques, nostalgic tone.

The Underground

• Themes: Love, sex, early marriage tension.
• Key images: Pan and Syrinx, the wet track, Orpheus and Eurydice.
• Stylistic features: Classical illusion, sexual language, tense tone.

The Skunk

• Themes: Love and desire, relationship evolution.
• Key images: The skunk, sensuous imagery, final lines with nightdress.
• Stylistic features: Playful tone, sensuous language.

Tate's Avenue

• Themes: Stages in a relationship.
• Key images: Three different rugs, detailed description of early romance.
• Stylistic features: Compound adjectives, nostalgic tone.

Postscript

• Themes: Impact of nature, aging, transience.
• Key images: The sea, lake, flock of swans.
• Stylistic features: Stream of consciousness, conversational tone.

Lightnings VIII

• Themes: Mystical, supernatural, helping others.
• Key images: Ship, monks, anchor.
• Stylistic features: Metaphorical discussion of different communities.

Examination Tips

• Remember PCLM marking scheme: Purpose (30%), Coherence (30%), Language (30%), Mechanics (10%).
• Practice planning and sample exam questions (e.g., transforming the mundane into universal themes).
• Highlight poetic terminology and quotes in practice essays.
• Heaney's works provide a wealth for exams due to universal and appealing themes.

Conclusion

• Heaney's language and themes make him an ideal poet for exams. Good luck!