Seamus Heaney Research Paper

Seamus Heaney is an irish poet with a country style influence on his poetry and the industrial messages scattered throughout his work, shows how powerful poetry can be when drawn from one’s lifestyle. Heaney grew up in Country Derry, but later moved to Dublin, where he gained an interest in poetry, after reading Robert Frost, Ted Hughes, and Patrick Kavanagh, role models who impacted Heaney's poetry to influence the style of heaney's work to incorporate imagery with various sights sounds, and textures. Heaney often reflects in his poetry about the Irish culture overrun by English rule, and often tried to show the political struggle in his poetry. In his lifetime, Heaney was brought up on a farm, but on his mother’s side of the family was very

When Heaney moved to Dublin, he was introduced to a completely different lifestyle then the one he originally came from. When Heaney moved the Dublin, he was married to his wife Marie Heaney. Seamus Heaney worked at Carysfort college, where he was head of the English department. After a couple years Heaney transferred to other colleges, first was Harvard, then to Boylston University, then Oxford. However, though all of these changed, Heaney felt anxiety and stress due to the fact that he wanted to stay with his family, and he made sure that the jobs he was taking would let him spend time with his family. So, it is safe to conclude that because Heaney does not want to change his lifestyle, Heaney has a detestation fo moving, which is shown through his imagery in his poetry. His disapproval for change can once again, be seen in “Blackberry-Picking”, where Heaney has taken the blackberries off the bush, and tries one, but once the blackberry is “off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.” This shows that as Heaney picks a blackberry from its own bush, where it was grown, the fruit changes in a negative way to become more sour. In this case, the bush is the “home” of the blackberry, and once it is picked, it takes a turn for the worse. This imagery conveys that Heaney dislikes change, as once he is “Picked” from his home, and is moved to a different

Going back to Heaney’s early life, his mother's side was focused more on the economy-driven goals of the industrial revolution, rather than the rural economy found on a farm. Heaney’s mother’s uncles were employed at a linen mill, and the aunt has worked in service to the owners of said mill. Heaney recalls his mother’s side of the family as very economically driven, and sometimes for the worse. This can be inferred that his mother’s aunt and uncles are too involved with making money that they often miss out on the happiness of life, and that their lust for money distances them with Heaney, and other family members, as Heaney states that he does not associate with them that often due to their work. Heaney ties this aspect of his life into his poetry, in which the message that greed can consume a person’s morals, and control them without the person even knowing it. For example, In “Blackberry Picking”, Heaney describes him and his friends out in the field, where they “hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.” This emphasizes that after hoarding the Backberries greedily, they thought they have benefitted from the surplus of blackberries, but in reality, they were all plagued with a hidden fungus that ruined all of them. This is a metaphor for the relationship of money and greed. This is because as a