Seamus Heaney

(1939-2013)

Seamus Heaney
-Won the Nobel Prize for Literature (1995)
-Translated many old English texts
-Taught at Harvard, Berkeley, and other schools
-Poetry featured personal and national issues
-One of the best-selling UK poets during his
lifetime

Childhood
-Born in 1939, in County Derry, Northern Ireland
-Father was a farmer and cattle herder
-Seamus was the oldest of 9 children
-Seamus lived with his family in a rural village for
most of his youth. He considered his childhood
old-fashioned and irrelevant to the modern
world.

A field outside of Bellaghy,

Heaney's childhood home

Education and Inspirations

-Studied at Queen's University Belfast
- Began to write poetry during his schooling
-Became a teacher, and gave lectures at many
prestigious universities
-Inspired by the prose style of Ted Hughes
-Joined the Belfast group of poets after gaining
the attention of Phillip Hobsbaum

Collections
-Heaney published his first
collection, Death of a Naturalist, in
1966.
-One of his most famous poems,
Digging, was the first poem in the
collection.
-The collections were well received
by the public.
-Twelve more major collections were
published during Heaney's lifetime.

Bog Poems
-Seamus wrote many poems about bodies
preserved in Irish Bogs.
-The conditions of the bogs preserved men and
women who were killed and placed there.
Heaney's collection of bog
poems honored the dead while
vividly describing the possible
causes of death.
Punishment (2955) is one of
these poems.

The Troubles
-In the late 1960s and 1970s, tensions grew
between Northern Ireland and the Republic of
Ireland
-While the conflict was mostly political, acts of
violence took place in Northern Ireland
-Riots and attacks resulted in over 3500 deaths
-Heaney wrote an elegy for Louis O'Neill in his
poem Casualty

Translations
-Heaney had a growing
interest in Old English
and Gaelic literature
during his time at
university
-He translated many old
Irish poems, songs, and
tales.
-Heaney's most famous
translation - Beowulf

Death
-Suffered a stroke in 2006, leaving him in a weak
condition
-Died in 2013, at the age of 74, due to illness
-His last words were Noli timere (Do not be
afraid)

Poetry
-Seamus Heaney's poetry is deeply personal he
writes about his connections to the past
-Most of his poetry has few rhymes, with a lot of
work being prose
-Heaney wanted to emphasize that he was an
Irish poet, not a British one

Digging

Between my finger and thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down.

Digging
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
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 picked
Loving their cool hardness with their hands.

Digging
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My Grandfather could 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 away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

Digging
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Analysis
-Digging is about the connections Heaney has with his
father and grandfather.
-Although he moved away instead of staying on the farm,
Heaney admired the men for their hard work digging and
planting potatoes.

- How does the poem's diction illustrate the hard

work that comes with digging?
- Does Heaney's connection of past and present
connect to you emotionally?

Activity
-Seamus Heaney wrote many of his poems about
personal aspects of his life.
-Write a poem (or story) about something in your
life that you think is important. Try and imitate
Heaney's style.
-Or write a short analysis of one of Heaney's other
poems. (pages 2953-2967)