Landscape And Identity:A Study Of Seamus Heaney’s Poetry

Because of “lyrical beauty” and “ethical depth” in his poetry, Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. Meanwhile, the two dimensions of “lyrical beauty” and “ethical depth” have become the focus of critics in China and other countries who have concentrated on the evaluation of Heaney’s poetry. Since the middle of the 20 th century, due to the religious and political conflicts, there have been fierce riots in Northern Ireland. Because of Heaney’s birth in Northern Ireland, a land full of political sensitivities, ethnic and religious conflicts, critics even readers are accustomed to labeling him as “Irish poet”, and regarding him as the warrior of Irish nationalism. Meanwhile, Seamus Heaney has explored his identity throughout the process of his poetry creation, and resorted to landscape to express his multiple choices of identity.Landscape research in new century presents the characteristics of diversification and inter-discipline. Though landscape is a kind of objective existence, it carries the cultural characteristics, and closely relates with ideology, national feelings as well as identity, also participates in the construction of politics, culture and identity. Landscape is not only treated as the object for sightseeing, but also as the “text” which can be interpreted and can reflect the formation process of social and personal identity. Meanwhile, landscape is also viewed as an order system of aesthetics, customs and ideology, which plays an vital role in the construction of political identity, class identity as well as national identity. In his poetry, Seamus Heaney has expressed his identity choice beyond the binary oppositions through landscape description. It is presented natural landscape in Mossbawn of Northern Ireland, landscape of farm practices, bog landscape, body landscape buried in peat-bog, historical landscape left by Viking invasion, and landscape of place-names through memory, history and language. The landscape presentation helps Heaney to express his identity choice and establish a new way of writing which encompasses varied identities and forces. In the new space, Heaney admits his objective national and cultural identity while striving for a dialogue with other culture, history and religion in order to create a multiple filed of force which embodies both “lyrical beauty” as well as “ethical depth” of poetry and is oriented to the future.This dissertation, from the perspective of landscape, has analyzed landscape presented through memory, history and language in Seamus Heaney’s poetry, explored varied cultural connotations presented by different landscapes and their roles in the construction of national identity. In addition to “Introduction” and “Conclusion” parts, the main body of this dissertation consists of three chapters.Chapter 1 “Allied and Alienated: Landscape and Memory in Seamus Heaney’s Poetry” studies the landscape presented by memory in poetry, its cultural connotation, and its role in the construction of identity. Firstly, it elaborates the relationship between landscape and memory. Memory is hidden in landscape and landscape presentation can reflect it. Therefore, landscape has become the important way to bear memory, while memory can help to create new landscape in order to construct new national identity. Secondly, it analyses the natural landscape which is presented through memory in Heaney’s poetry. There are three ways that natural landscape plays its role in identity construction as follows: first, landscape image with common symbolic meaning is presented to arouse collective memory, which is used to express value identification as well as identity affiliation. Second, the dark landscape presentation which makes people unpleasant expresses alienation of identity. Third, landscape is used to rebuild national character. Thirdly, it analyses the landscape of farm practices of Heaney’s family members as well as Irish traditional craftsmen in poetry. “Grandfather cutting the turf on the bog”, “father digging on potato drills”, “mother churning milk”, “the diviner”, “the forger” and “the thatcher”, with their daily activities, have formed the landscape of farm practices with distinct Irish traits. On one hand, poetry creation activity, compared to farm practices, becomes the most suitable way for Heaney to inherit Irish tradition. Though Heaney’s inheritance for farm activity “digging” is varied in ways, there are both ways for living and same in spirit. Therefore, the activity of “digging” will last forever, and the tradition of farm practices will be passed down from generation to generation. On the other hand, in the landscape description of poetry, Heaney just described the farm practices, but never involved in such activities. Therefore, such “onlooker-way” description is an evidence of Heaney’s alienation from Irish tradition and culture. In his chapter, it presents natural landscape as well as landscape of farm practices to express Heaney’s allied while alienated attitude towards Irish tradition and culture, construct his identity of Irish poet, while transcend the constraints of his Irish objective identity, and go into an imaginary world with different cultures.Chapter 2 “‘Objective Correlative’ of Violence: Landscape and History in Seamus Heaney’s Poetry” studies the landscape presented through history based on the relationship between landscape and history. Firstly, it illustrates the relationship between landscape and history. Landscape, history and human being are in an interactive relationship, and landscape carries historical and cultural information of varied times. In addition, landscape is one of the most lasting links between physical environment and human society. It is the faithful record of historical process, and the historical text which records and reflects traces of human activities. Landscape presented through history carries the cultural symbols of that historical period, inherits and continues its content as well as significance. Secondly, it analyses landscape of corpse digged out of the bogpeat. Seamus Heaney has ever read the book The Bog People by Danish anthropologist as well as archaeologist P. V. Glob which records the corpses digged out of bog-peat and used for rituals in ancient times. Inspired from it, Heaney has found new theme and material for poetry creation in the realistic predicament. Landscape of corpse, as historical record and symbol of predicament in Northern Ireland, provides “objective correlative” for Heaney’s poetry creation. By the means of comparison between present and history, Heaney has responded to realistic violence in Northern Ireland indirectly by referring to historical theme. Thirdly, it presents the historical landscape of northern Europe. The Vikings came to Irish Island, invaded and occupied Gaelic territory and plundered their wealth about A.D. 800 ago. Accompanied with invasion as well as aggression, the Vikings began their renovation and construction work on the Island of Ireland. Therefore, there are a great deal of landscapes with distinct Viking features left on Irish Island. The historical landscape of northern Europe is an evidence of violence. Compared with the present conflict and violence in Northern Ireland, the circulation of violence has warned future generations. Landscape of corpses and historical landscape left by Vikings when they invaded Irish Island help Heaney find “objective correlative” of violence in Northern Ireland and solve the contradiction between present responsibility and artistic pursuit. Meanwhile, these landscape presentations help to build a communication bridge between shouldering the responsibility of tragic and painful reality in Northern Ireland and being responsible for artistic freedom, being an open and inclusive field where varied cultures, ideologies even ethnics interact and constitute multiple links. Therefore, it helps to construct Heaney’s multiple identities of a Catholic in Northern Ireland as well as an English poet.Chapter 3 “Open and Pluralistic: Landscape and Language in Seamus Heaney’s Poetry” discusses the Dinnshenchas which is the combination of landscape and language and the landscape of language in Heaney’s late poetry based on the relationship between landscape and language. Nation is not only the product of political struggle, but also closely relates with landscape, culture and language. Landscape and language have played vital role in constructing nation and identity, and language and landscape presentation are consistent. On one hand, landscape can be interpreted into language, on the other hand, language description can present landscape. Place-names are throughout Seamus Heaney’s poetic career. Starting from his hometown—Mossbawn, Seamus Heaney has presented Irish places and landscape with distinct Irish characteristics such as Anahorish, Broagh, Toome, Derrygarve and so on in his poetry. Then Heaney has centered on Glanmore and created Glanmore Sonets as well as Glanmore Revisited. Glanmore is as important as Mossbawn for Heaney, because it connects social reality of Northern Ireland in 1970 s with his personal life. Based on the creation of place names which combine language, rhythm and landscape, Seamus Heaney has created a diversified and open field of force which integrates varied cultures as well as ideologies, and it transcends the binary opposition of nationalities and religions, providing an imaginary space to solve identity choice, religious dilemma and political conflict. Moreover, Seamus Heaney, starting from the relationship between landscape and language, are striving for constructing a new space including varied origins, regions as well as cultures where he tries to seek “culture of the world” as Mandelstam has imagined. In addition, in the poetry creation, Heaney has inherited and continued the literature tradition of ancient Greek, England as well as Ireland. Thus, his poetry has become the platform for the exchange and merge among different literature traditions, which helps to improve the value of his poetry and establish his identity as an English poet.In conclusion, in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, his plural identities of Irishman, Irish poet, Irish Catholics as well as English poet are constructed by landscape presentation through memory, history and language. Meanwhile, landscape presentation in poetry has provided a wider vision for identity choice in realistic contradiction of Northern Ireland, constructed a space of exchange and discussion. In addition, Heaney has tried to break the political boundary by historical integration, presented a new way of writing what both responds realistic conflicts in Northern Ireland and reflects artistic as well as aesthetic value of poetry, and committed to set up an imaginary world open to the future. Varied identities are vital for Seamus Heaney, and they consist in the great poet as well as his achievements. The field of force, established by the landscape presentation through memory, history and language has transcended the binary opposition of nation and religion, included different cultures, politics as well as ideologies, and promoted poet’s artistic creation, which provides a new method of writing for literary creators who suffer from split culture. What’s more, the plural identity choice by Seamus Heaney offers references as well as new cognitive maps for people who are entangled with the question “How should we properly live” in postmodern transitional period.