[Harrison Dole]

After seeing the graphic and violent context behind the political, social, and economic struggles that the people of Northern Ireland faced during the Troubles, I find it quite surprising that Heaney managed to keep himself at arm’s length from the central issue in concerns of his writing.  Of course, in the early years he was not a particularly prominent figure, and was not necessarily in Ireland at the time, but to maintain that sort of distance clearly took a tremendous amount of conscious effort.  I think this explains a lot of why Heaney’s early poetry has so much to do with identity, because his awareness of his inability to properly grapple with the issues facing his people evoked a lot of self-reflection that we witness in his poems such as “Digging”, “Follower”, and “Trial Runs”.  To see Heaney develop as a writer in the context of the conflicts in Northern Ireland definitely clarifies his more poignant work in North as well.

[Alyssa Stefanese]

I completely agree with what Harrison has said above. Heaney’s change in poetic subject matter caused me to draw a parallel between Heaney and Yeats. Northern Ireland in the 1970s as we have seen from the documentary was a chaotic and violent place. Heaney as a Northern Irish, catholic was inherently tied to these troubles and as a poet seemed forced to address them in his work. It became a sort of responsibility. This sentiment is similar to what Yeats felt in regards to Nationalism, specifically events such as the lockout or the Easter Rising. We can see this parallel between the two as they both moved from nature or “peasant” lifestyle subjects into more politically directed or motived poems. We can clearly see this is Heaney’s collection North (1975). Take the poem “Whatever You Say Say Nothing” as an example. In this piece the speaker is addressing the media and how it is dealing with the troubles in Northern Ireland

• This reply was modified 12 years, 4 months ago by Alyssa Stefanese.

[Meagan Turner]

I agree with the ideas that Harrison and Alyssa have presented, and think that Heaney’s turn to write about some of the matter during the Troubles is what helped him gain popularity. Because, as Alyssa pointed out Heaney was inherently tied to what was going on in Northern Ireland. The fact that he was a native of the area might have led people to read his poetry about the Troubles, even though he wasn’t present at the time, thinking he would have an “insider” prospective.

When writing about the struggles in Ireland, Yeats tended to keep a very neutral stance, where it took deeper analysis in order to really figure out what he meant or what side he took, such as in “Easter, 1916.” For Heaney I thought that the neutrality was still there but not to the extent that Yeats was able to maintain. As we discussed in class, one of the biggest criticisms was that Heaney was one sided in his portrayal of the Troubles. That instead of having a balanced portrayal between Protestants and Catholics, Heaney mainly focused on the Catholic side of the issue.  Though there isn’t really anything wrong with that, since Heaney isn’t a historian, he’s a poet and he can portray issues as he pleases. So although it may seem like Heaney was neutral, I don’t think he was quite as neutral as Yeats was in matters of conflict.

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