"To Pry into Roots": Seamus Heaney's Poetic Quest for Irishness as Discursive Practice

• Main Authors: Shen,Fu-yuan, 沈富源
• Other Authors: Wu,Chuan-cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1994
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/41104713997083593652

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學系 === 82 === Seamus Heaney is widely acknowledged as one of the best poets now writing in Ireland. But he is often misunderstood as a simple, popular, local writer whose methods are rather traditional than innovative. By means of analyzing Heaney's presentation in quest of Irishness, the purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that his poetic artistry is actually progressive and sophisticated within the main current of contemporary intellectual life and that he has transcended the limitations of Irish provincialism. Chapter I serves as an introduction and gives a biogrpahical account of Heaney. Chapter II reviews Heaney's recurrent motifs of digging, bogland and language. It, then, undertakes to reveal that digging is the key action of his quest for Irish roots, that bogland constitutes a structural imagery by which the poet draws an analogue to the present situation of the troubled Northern Ireland, and that the native language is an embodiment of Irish culture, retrieving the lost origin of Irishness. Chapters III through V investigate, in reference to theories of discourse, Heaney's poetic quest for Irsihness respectively from three aspects: namely, language, ideologoy and subjectivity. Chapter III examines his early poems as a Romantic discourse to present a presence supposedly experienced directly through words and to disavow the process of enunciation so as to provide a coherent Irsihness for the reader to identify with. Chpater IV discusses Heaney's counter- discourse that calls into doubt the existence of Irishness. The Irish subjectivity in this stance becomes questionable and fissured. The last chapter analyzes his literary self- consciousness that makes up a reverse discourse to dismantle the Irish essence and to deconstruct its underlying logocentrism.