Seamus Heaney: Digging

Seamus Heaney: Digging

Structural

• 9 stanzas
• stanzas include two to three lines- no pattern
• some two lines of rhyme, not random
• importance: can not predict the future

So what?

Literary Devices

Alliteration: "spade sinks," "burried the bright," "squelch and slap," "Nicking and slicing neatly," "curt cuts," and "gravelling grounds."

• nice sounding phrases, flowing rhythm
• adding to imagery with sound

Literary Devices: Imagery

• influenced from the rich imagery of nature from growing up in Ireland
• the imagery enhances his admiration and respect for his father and grandfather's skill and occupation.

Repetition: "ing" verbs

• symbolizes honest labor with action verbs

Metaphor: "Snug as a gun"

• Smells: "cold smell of potato..."
• Hearing: "squelch and slap of soggy peat"
• Visual: "coarse boot nestled on the lug."
• Feeling: "cool hardness in our hards."

Seamus Heaney Biography

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

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

Tone

Admiration: "By God"

Retrospective: switching from present to past tense

The Title/ symbol

Discussion Quesions

1. Do you think Heaney felt his father was ashamed in the beginning of the poem?

2. Why do you think the poem's structure was somewhat organized but did not have a specific pattern?

Sources

The Title: digging

• concise and clear
• literally digging as a job
• figuratively digging into his past to sort out his identity and to connect to his family traditions
• symbolically digging: relating his job to the work ethic as a writer.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177017

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/seamus-heaney

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetheaney/diggingrev2.shtml

Themes

Character Change

• relates the pen as a gun in the beginning: negative connotation
• relates the pen to a spade: "I'll dig with it," in the end
• importance: after reflecting on his past, he changes to a positive outlook on his decision to make a transition from rural to modern occupation.

1. Family and Tradition

2. Identity

3. Transitions

Paraphrase

I have a pen in my hand, it fits perfectly. I hear my father working outside. I look outside and see him digging out flowerbeds. I watch his technique and his skill in his work. He can work with the same work ethic as his father. Reflecting back, I carried him milk while he worked. He was hard at work, digging. He lives through his father's work and his father's work. He can now dig like them, but he can write with the same skill and pride.

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 a spade.

Just like his old man.

Summary

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.

• Native of Northern Ireland
• contributes main themes in his poetry
• Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995
• Taught at Harvard University (1985-2006)
• Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994)
• Died in 2013

Heaney watches his father outside digging flowerbeds. He reflects back to when he was a boy and watched his grandfather doing the same. Heaney knows he will not continue his family's tradition, but he was show pride in his occupation as a writer as his father and grandfather worked.

My grandfather 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.