Digging Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939, on a farm in

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Digging Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939, on a farm in

Castledawson, County Derry, Northern

Digging

Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939, on a farm in Castledawson,

County Derry, Northern Ireland, the eldest of eight children. In 1963,

he began teaching at St. Joseph's College in Belfast.

The first poem I’ll be looking at is ‘digging’ it was written in

1966.

The poem consists of 9 stanzas that vary between two lines and five

lines in length. There is no pattern to the stanzas, perhaps to

reflect the idea that there is no pattern or predictability to our

memories.

In the poem there is quite a variation in the language e.g. the title

is blunt. It is only when we have read the poem carefully that we

realise that all three generation are involved in digging: his

grandfather dug turf, his father dug up potatoes, Heaney is digging up

his memories and his past.

There is quite a lot of words ending in ‘ing’. ‘Digging’ ‘Rasping’

and ‘Slicing’ this gives the poem a feel of action like your actually

there. It gives the reader the effect of being there seeing it hearing

it smelling it almost touching it. It gives the poem a certain flow,

the poem doesn’t start and stop it flows from one stanza to another.

The poem begins in the present tense as Heaney describes seeing his

elderly father straining among the flowerbeds, then goes into the past

tense when he remembers his father and grandfather at work. The last

two stanzas return to the present, when Heaney realises that his work

is to write. The final line, however, is in the future tense, to

emphasise Heaney's determination ‘I’ll dig’.

He then describes his father and his grandfather as they work, he

describes to us their movements and...

... middle of paper ...

...e. It repeats

the opening lines: 'Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen

rests.' Yet the gun image is replaced by 'I'll dig with it.' His pen

becomes a metaphorical spade. This suggests that his pen is his tool,

just as the spades were tools for his father and grandfather. It also

suggests that Heaney wants to 'go back to his roots’ to dig into his

past through his writing.

There is a lot of repetition in the poem, the words “dig’ and

“digging” are used. This shows the importance of digging, for peat and

potatoes, it also show how it is part of his families heritage and has

been going or generations.

A few lines near the beginning of the poem have fairly conventional

rhymes: thumb/gun, sound/ground/down; thereafter the poem is unrhymed,

though there are repeated sounds such as the echoing ing sounds in

'nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods'

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