A Tribute by Haris Qadeer
The Nobel Laureate
Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) was born in a catholic family of farmers of Northern Ireland;
a country torn apart by colonial, communal and political strives. He not only
made his mark as one of the most popular postmodern English poet but also as an
essayist. Heaney’s credentials include various academic positions and literary
honours. His greatest literary achievement was Nobel Prize in 1995.
He saw himself as the
custodian and celebrant of lost culture, forgotten history and diminishing
heritage. Heaney‘s poetry is for the cause of rehabilitating the culture and
traditions, manners and morals, language and identity and history and politics
of Northern Ireland. His negotiations are pleas for reconciliations and peace. Heaney’s oeuvres mirror
the plight of marginalized Irish people and the trauma of British colonization
on culture, traditions, identity and language of Northern Ireland. It throws in
relief the attitude of hegemonic society.
In his poetry Heaney was preoccupied with the concern of redeeming the
pride and reclaiming fragmented identity of the Irish people. For this purpose
he opted to be a digger and dug deep into the layers of Irish history and
English literature to expose and fill the voids of historical amnesia. Heaney‘s
poetic digging suggests his desire to restore the dignity of his nation through
his writings. In the opening poem ‘Digging’ (Death of a Naturalist, 1966) he made his intention clear: ‘’Between
my finger and my thumb/ The squat pen rests/I’ll dig with it. . Heaney, unlike
his ancestors, could not use the inherited spade and instead turned to pen.
Heaney revived and used
Irish legends, associated himself with the rural environs, used the Irish
tradition of ‘dinnseanchas‘ as the signifier for rehabilitation native
Irish culture. Although Heaney lamented the loss of the original Irish language
but he saw English language as a practical alternative. He had a divided
loyalty for the English language. The English language reminded him of colonial
and racial cruelties, cultural domination and Irish misrepresentations but it
is the same language that made his works popular in the literary circles across
the world. He dealt with linguistic genocide of the Irish language and cultural
massacre of rural Ireland. He captured the same dilemma dealt with in the poem
‘Traditions‘ (Wintering Out,1972), an
allegorical elegy written for the loss of native Irish language: “Our guttural
muse /was bullied long ago/ by alliterative tradition” The concept of re-writing history through
literature and amalgamation of past and present became hallmark of Heaney’s
poetry.
Heaney delved into the
past to interpret the present scenario. His ‘Bog poems’ are known for his
endeavour to give voice to the historically muted victims of Iron Age. Heaney
drew parallel between the sacrificial victims of the Iron Age and the sectarian
killing of contemporary Ireland. The
dead corpse of people from Iron Age returned in Heaney’s poetry. Heaney gave
proper literary spaces to these victims, returned their voices and celebrated
them as any other object of beauty. The bogs in Heaney’s poetry represent a
storehouse of the memories that, when released from its depth, sometime
underscore, and sometime contradict the verdicts of history.
With the conferment of
Nobel Prize in 1995, Heaney poetic horizons were broadened. He moved from the
domains of nationalism and incorporated the concerns and vision of the whole
world. Heaney was sensitive to the psychology of the whole humanity. Heaney
peopled his poetry with- men, women and children, young and old, farmers and
soldiers, saints and gods. He paints the canvas of his poetry with the people
living in different and contradictory worlds. In some of his poems Heaney dealt
with a number of people with handicaps. He showed how these physically
challenged people become the other of the society because of the indifference
of people.
In the collections that
Heaney published in the later phase of his career such as The Spirit Level (1996),
Electric Light (2001), District and Circle (2006) and Human Chain, his childhood memories are
littered with the imagery of the World War II and the wars of contemporary
times. In ‘A Sofa in the Forties‘ (The Spirit Level), Polish
Sleeper‘ and Anahorish 1944‘ (District and Circle) the poet remembers
the impact of World War II, the ethnic cleansing of Balkan region is recalled
in Known World‘ (Electric Light) and in ‘’Anything can Happen‘ (DC),
the terror strike of 9/11 is projected. Through
the portrayal of the war-ridden world, he wished to bring home the horrors of
wars and the apathy of man for man.
Heaney‘s poetry is for
all of mankind in its holistic magnitude, prospective of peace as the ultimate
destiny which is the inscrutably sacred, inalienably sublime and integrally
woven with the examples of virtues of saints and Christ. In The Spirit Level St. Kevin and
Jesus Christ appear, the journeyman tailor becomes Buddha of Banagher. The
references to Lourdes, and the pilgrimage site of St. Bernadette in France and
the philosophy of love, harmony universal brotherhood preached by the Stoic
Heraclitus in Electric Light suggest that Heaney propagated peace and
harmony through his poetry. Heaney‘s poetry is against all such divisions. He
dreamt of a healthy society sans narrow divisions. The Nobel Laureate, with
such humanitarian concerns elevated himself to a pedestal where he undoubtedly,
can be admired as the World‘s Poet. He wrote in collection Electric Light:
Q. and A. come
back. They “formed my mind.”
“Who is my
neighbour?” “My neighbour is all mankind”
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