Seamus Heany IEN 2601 Mitsunobu - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Seamus Heany

IEN 2601

Mitsunobu

Narita

Yeraldo

ARana

Freita

contents

Biography

First poem “Digging” analysis and summery

Second poem “Punishment” analysis and summery

Questions

R

eferences

Biography

Seamus Heaney(13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was renowned Irish poet and professor.

His best-known works is Death of a Naturalist(1966).

He was born in a farm in the

Castledàwson

region of northern Ireland.He received a scholarship to attend the school St. Columb's College in Derry and went on to Queens University in Belfast and graduating in 1961.

Heaney worked as a schoolteacher for a time before becoming a college lecturer and eventually working as a freelance poet by the early '70s. In 1965.

He was also known for his prose writing and work as an editor, as well as serving as a

professor .

Received the 1995 Novel prize in Literature.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests ;

snug as a gun

Under my window, a clean rasping

soundWhen the spade sinks into gravelly ground

My father, digging. I look down

In his room

Simile as a weapon

Scenery has changed

Alliteration creates rhythm

Till his straining rump

among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato

drills

Where he was digging.Going back to twenty years ago

r

ump = buttocks

drills = small lanes in which seeds are sown

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He

rooted

out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we pickedLoving their cool hardness in our hands.By God, the old man could handle the spade.Just like his old man.

The close-up his father's spadework over the years.

“

oo

” sounds are assonance which reflects the rhythm of digging

He is admiring and impressed dignity of labor.

My ground father cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on

Toner’s bog

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right awayNicking and slicing neatly, heaving sodsOver his shoulder, going down and downFor the good turf. Digging.

The speaker takes the reader deeper into ancestral history.

Toner’s bog is the name of peat bog not far from Heaney's birthplace

sods is section of torn grass

Repetitive task

The cold smell of potato mould

, the

squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken i

n my head.But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.Between my finger and my thumbThe squat pen rests.I’ll dig with it.

The memory of that scene is alive in the speaker's mind

Onomatopoeic sounds

The final stanza is a near repeat of the opening lines.

Summery

Autobiographical poem about family tradition and admiration for elders.

These are parallels with “Follower” or an artist who will not follow in his father’s and ground father’s footsteps as a common laborer.

Heaney respects their digging skills and their perseverance.

Ultimately, Heaney comp

ares farmer’s spade and artist’s pen.

Punishment

I

can

feel

the tug

of the halter at the napeof her neck, the windon her naked front.

It blows her

nipples

to amber beads,

i

t shakes the frail rigging of her ribs.Pronoun “I” taking the reader into the tactile world.The ”feel” reflects the sensitive nature of the speakerSensuous susceptibility

wind affects her nipples.Nautical image

I can see her drowned

body

in the

bog

,

the weighing stone,the floating rods and boughs.Under which at firstshe was a barked sapling that is dug upoak – bone, brain – firkin

From feel to see, changing the sense

As if a witness to this horrific event

Assonance

Metaphorically she was a barked sapling

Oak-bone : hardwood tree

firkin small wooden barrel

her shaved head

like a stubble of black corn

,

h

er blindfold a

soiled bandage,her noose a ringto storethe memories of love.Little adultress,b

efore they punished you

The speaker progresses with more descriptive way

Simile - head shaved

Unclean, dirty, tarnished, tarnished

In this stanza, speaker changes the word from “girl” to “you”

Enjambment between stanzas occurs for the second time

you were

flaxen

-haired,

undernourished, and your

t

ar – black face was beautiful.My poor scapegoat,I almost love youbut would have cast, I know,the s

tones of

s

ilence.

I am the artful

voyeur

The speaker imagines the living girl who is beautiful human. Flaxen – greyish yellowMade to bear blame for othersThe speaker suggests she might be innocent .Sibilancevoyeur – deriving pleasure (sexual arousal)

of your brain’s exposed

and darkened

combs

,

your muscles’ webbing

and all your numbered bonesI who have stood dumbwhen your betraying sisters,cauled in tar,wept by the railings,

She is still under public scrutiny.

Possibly referring to honeycomb structure

Time shift links to modern Ireland.

Portion of amnion (

embryous

membrane) or a close-fitting cap worn by women

Who would connive

in civilized outrage

yet understand the exact

and tribal, intimate revenge.

The tone of the poem shifts sort of confession.

Summery

Punishment is concerned with the discovery of a 14 year old girl’s body that was exhumed from a bog in Germany (1952 –

Windeby

). The body was preserved 2000 years’ old. She was executed on account of adultery.

Questions

1. What are the two meaning of the title of

“Digging”?

2. What is the tone of this poe

m ”Digging” ?

3. Why does the speaker admire his father of this

poem “Digging”?

4. What is punishment by Seamus Heaney about?

5. How does the poet describe the punishment of

the girl in the poem “Punishment”?

References

https://fawbie.info/north/punishment/

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-Punishment-by-Seamus-Heaney

https://www.biography.com/writer/seamus-heaney

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamus_Heaney

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1995/heaney/biographical/

2014 Dr. Andrew Barker lecture

Thank you for your attention!!