Seamus Heany

1. Seamus Heany IEN 2601 Mitsunobu Narita YeraldoARanaFreita

2. contents • Biography • First poem “Digging” analysis and summery • Second poem “Punishment” analysis and summery • Questions • References

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Digging Between my finger and my 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 In his room Simile as a weapon Scenery has changed Alliteration creates rhythm

6. 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 rump = buttocks drills = small lanes in which seeds are sown

7. 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 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.

8. 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 away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For 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

9. 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. 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.

10. 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 compares farmer’s spade and artist’s pen.

11. Punishment I can feel the tug of the halter at the nape of her neck, the wind on her naked front. It blows her nipples to amber beads, it shakes the frail rigging of her ribs. Pronoun “I” taking the reader into the tactile world. The ”feel” reflects the sensitive nature of the speaker Sensuous susceptibility wind affects her nipples. Nautical image

12. I can see her drowned body in the bog, the weighing stone, the floating rods and boughs. Under which at first she was a barked sapling that is dug up oak – 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

13. her shaved head like a stubble of black corn, her blindfold a soiled bandage, her noose a ring to store the memories of love. Little adultress, before 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

14. you were flaxen-haired, undernourished, and your tar – black face was beautiful. My poor scapegoat, I almost love you but would have cast, I know, the stones of silence. I am the artful voyeur The speaker imagines the living girl who is beautiful human. Flaxen – greyish yellow Made to bear blame for others The speaker suggests she might be innocent . Sibilance voyeur – deriving pleasure (sexual arousal)

15. of your brain’s exposed and darkened combs, your muscles’ webbing and all your numbered bones I who have stood dumb when 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

16. Who would connive in civilized outrage yet understand the exact and tribal, intimate revenge. The tone of the poem shifts sort of confession.

17. 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.

18. Questions • 1. What are the two meaning of the title of “Digging”? • 2. What is the tone of this poem ”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”?

19. 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

20. Thank you for your attention!!