Wednesday
"Nights of Childhood" (55)
"Spring at the Edge of the Sonnet" (59)
"Distances" (69)
"The Oral Tradition" (75)
"Miss Eire" (78)
"Self-Portrait on a Summer Evening" (80)
"The Women" (84)
"Fever" (87)
"Envoi" (97)
"Suburban Woman: A Detail" (98)
"An Irish Childhood in England: 1951" (106)
"The Emigrant Irish" (108)
"Listen. This is the Noise of Myth" (113)
Monday 30 March 2009
Saturday 28 March 2009
Eavan Boland Reading List
I've started your reading list for Eavan Boland. I'll finish it tomorrow, but you have your reading for Monday now. Please be aware that you are not going to be able to find most of these poems online, so if you haven't bought the book, you need to. It's a book I think you will want to keep.
Monday
"The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me" (19)
"The Rooms of Other Women Poets" (20)
"Brush-cut Irish Silver" (29)
"A False Spring" (37)
"The Making of an Irish Goddess" (38)
"White Hawthorn in the West of Ireland" (40)
"An Old Steel Engraving" (45)
"In Exile" (46)
"We Are Always Too Late" (47)
"What We Lost" (48)
"Outside History" (50)
You really should read the entire sequence from Outside History since it is, after all, a sequence. But make sure you at least read the sections I've listed. And don't forget to write about "The Haw Lantern" on the blog.
Monday
"The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me" (19)
"The Rooms of Other Women Poets" (20)
"Brush-cut Irish Silver" (29)
"A False Spring" (37)
"The Making of an Irish Goddess" (38)
"White Hawthorn in the West of Ireland" (40)
"An Old Steel Engraving" (45)
"In Exile" (46)
"We Are Always Too Late" (47)
"What We Lost" (48)
"Outside History" (50)
You really should read the entire sequence from Outside History since it is, after all, a sequence. But make sure you at least read the sections I've listed. And don't forget to write about "The Haw Lantern" on the blog.
"The Haw Lantern"
Just a reminder: I would like a progress report from you by Friday (April 3), detailing how you are getting along with your term paper.
The wintry haw is burning out of season,
Yesterday in class we briefly discussed “The Haw Lantern,” but none of us (and we should all be embarrassed about this) had looked up the story of Diogenes, so I asked that by Monday, all of us look further into the poem and write something on the blog about it. I came home and re-read the poem several times, then looked up the reference to Diogenes, then read the poem a few more times. I won’t talk about the entire poem because I want to leave some ground for you to furrow, but I’ll get us started:
Diogenes was an Athenian beggar who championed self-sufficiency and rejected all the comforts of so-called civilization (a house, utensils, prepared food, etc.). He is most famous for walking through the streets of Athens carrying a lamp, looking for an honest man among the masses.
As I re-read “The Haw Lantern,” it became clear that the lantern in the poem is a metaphor; the “haw” is a hawthorn bush, and the “lantern” is the large red berry, or fruit, that grows on it (see pictures). The lantern-berries, the size of crab apples (“crab of the thorn”), are shining, but they are doing so in winter, bearing fruit “out of season":
Diogenes was an Athenian beggar who championed self-sufficiency and rejected all the comforts of so-called civilization (a house, utensils, prepared food, etc.). He is most famous for walking through the streets of Athens carrying a lamp, looking for an honest man among the masses.
As I re-read “The Haw Lantern,” it became clear that the lantern in the poem is a metaphor; the “haw” is a hawthorn bush, and the “lantern” is the large red berry, or fruit, that grows on it (see pictures). The lantern-berries, the size of crab apples (“crab of the thorn”), are shining, but they are doing so in winter, bearing fruit “out of season":
The wintry haw is burning out of season,
crab of the thorn, a small light for small people
An organic process, the seasonal cycle, has become corrupted. On a literal level, this could mean that bushes don’t norm
ally fruit in winter, so seeing them do so is atypical. But of course it is more than this. This is Ireland’s winter, its bleak season (The poem was written during the Troubles), and any lantern that shines in that season, particularly the lantern of Diogenes, looking for a “just man,” is not going to give off much light. In fact, it can’t, or doesn’t want to, give off too much light…just enough to “keep the wick of self-respect from dying out.”
But even this proves difficult. Indeed, at the end of the poem, the metaphorical Diogenes (appearing in the poem as the berry on each branch) “moves on,” signifying that no just man can be found (not even the reader). Both the light, and the people it is supposed to illuminate, are “small.” This is more than a reference to Northern Ireland being a relatively-small country in terms of its size. The implication is that its people can also be narrow-minded, near-sighted, petty, etc.
The Haw Lantern was published in 1987, during a time when Sinn Fein was actively seeking to negotiate an end to the Northern Ireland conflicts, but those conflicts were still bloody and ongoing, if less frequent than they had been in the 70s. Thus, there is definitely a political undercurrent to the poem that we can’t ignore. But like so many of Heaney’s poems, the politics are not addressed head-on; that is, he is not going to take a determined political stance here. Indeed, the fact that there is no honest man to be found is a denunciation of everyone involved. Heaney's stance is that no one is blameless (think of the story we discussed from his Nobel Lecture). He is more concerned with the wrong-ness of a climate that creates and allows bloodshed, taking Ireland "out of season." In fact, if the hawthorn, like Yeats’s laurel tree, or his rose, can be seen as a symbol of Ireland, then the reference to a “blood-prick” is much more than a haw-thorn pricking you. It may also be the realization, as you look at its blood-red fruit, that the fruit of wrong-seasoned, present-day Northern Ireland is bloody. This should indeed prick us. The prick is a blood test (whenever I’ve had my blood checked, it requires a pricking of the finger), a test that stands in for Diogenes with his lantern, asking you if you are honest, if you are just, if you are honest enough to allow yourself, your conscience, to be pricked. You want that prick to "clear you," much like a clean blood test can tell you you don't have an infection, or a disease. But you are found wanting. You are not cleared. Heaney’s use of the second person is telling:
But sometimes when your breath plumes in the frost
it takes the roaming shape of Diogenes
This has several implications, one of which is that the test, the introspective look, comes from within us. If we let ourselves be pricked, we will be honest enough to admit that we are by no means blameless.
I’ve said enough to get us going. Calling all critics…
An organic process, the seasonal cycle, has become corrupted. On a literal level, this could mean that bushes don’t norm
ally fruit in winter, so seeing them do so is atypical. But of course it is more than this. This is Ireland’s winter, its bleak season (The poem was written during the Troubles), and any lantern that shines in that season, particularly the lantern of Diogenes, looking for a “just man,” is not going to give off much light. In fact, it can’t, or doesn’t want to, give off too much light…just enough to “keep the wick of self-respect from dying out.”But even this proves difficult. Indeed, at the end of the poem, the metaphorical Diogenes (appearing in the poem as the berry on each branch) “moves on,” signifying that no just man can be found (not even the reader). Both the light, and the people it is supposed to illuminate, are “small.” This is more than a reference to Northern Ireland being a relatively-small country in terms of its size. The implication is that its people can also be narrow-minded, near-sighted, petty, etc.
The Haw Lantern was published in 1987, during a time when Sinn Fein was actively seeking to negotiate an end to the Northern Ireland conflicts, but those conflicts were still bloody and ongoing, if less frequent than they had been in the 70s. Thus, there is definitely a political undercurrent to the poem that we can’t ignore. But like so many of Heaney’s poems, the politics are not addressed head-on; that is, he is not going to take a determined political stance here. Indeed, the fact that there is no honest man to be found is a denunciation of everyone involved. Heaney's stance is that no one is blameless (think of the story we discussed from his Nobel Lecture). He is more concerned with the wrong-ness of a climate that creates and allows bloodshed, taking Ireland "out of season." In fact, if the hawthorn, like Yeats’s laurel tree, or his rose, can be seen as a symbol of Ireland, then the reference to a “blood-prick” is much more than a haw-thorn pricking you. It may also be the realization, as you look at its blood-red fruit, that the fruit of wrong-seasoned, present-day Northern Ireland is bloody. This should indeed prick us. The prick is a blood test (whenever I’ve had my blood checked, it requires a pricking of the finger), a test that stands in for Diogenes with his lantern, asking you if you are honest, if you are just, if you are honest enough to allow yourself, your conscience, to be pricked. You want that prick to "clear you," much like a clean blood test can tell you you don't have an infection, or a disease. But you are found wanting. You are not cleared. Heaney’s use of the second person is telling:
But sometimes when your breath plumes in the frost
it takes the roaming shape of Diogenes
This has several implications, one of which is that the test, the introspective look, comes from within us. If we let ourselves be pricked, we will be honest enough to admit that we are by no means blameless.
I’ve said enough to get us going. Calling all critics…
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Seamus Heaney "Punishment" on YouTube/South Park episode about "The Lottery"
Here is the link to the animated version of "Punishment" that we discussed in class today.
Here is a link to the South Park episode about it; it's incredibly insightful. Fair warning: it's pretty offensive (which should come as no surprise), but the point of the episode is profoundly moral and, despite the initial sensationalism in the first few minutes, there's a compassion to that cannot be overlooked.
Here is a link to the South Park episode about it; it's incredibly insightful. Fair warning: it's pretty offensive (which should come as no surprise), but the point of the episode is profoundly moral and, despite the initial sensationalism in the first few minutes, there's a compassion to that cannot be overlooked.
Monday 23 March 2009
Northern Ireland - Belfast- Jeph
These are just a handful of photo's I took from Belfast when I was there. I have a lot more but I don't think everyone wants to see all of them. I think this gives you a good idea of what it looks like there. Forgive me if things are out of order or messed up. I'm not exactly keen on how blogger works.
Also, I have some other pretty interesting photos from Derry, where Bloody Sunday occurred, if anyone is interested. It gives another perspective of the politics of Northern Ireland.
This is a large "H" (obviously) in remembrance of the H-block prison hunger strikers that died in the early 80's.
The H-Block prison is a very fascinating and tragic story. Basically these men died because they refused to be referred to as criminals. They wanted to be called "Prisoners of War" and thus given basic rights of a P.O.W. because to them, they were fighting what they considered an illegally occupying government.
Margaret Thatcher let ten of them die of hunger strikes (the two in the middle died in the h-blocks at an earlier time but I'm not sure of what but they weren't hunger strikers).
At the top..."SAOIRSE"...Irish for "Freedom"
The following sign says "Welcome to Falls Road" in Irish Gaelic.
It must be noted that painting murals is illegal in Belfast. There are far less murals in the Catholic neighborhoods than in the Protestant Neighborhoods and that could be due to the fact that until recent times, the police and the government was over 90% protestant.
Notice the high steel fence.
I thought this was interesting. There were a lot of murals on Falls Road that had nothing to do with the politics of Belfast but this one, I thought, was very interesting.
This is the most famous mural on the side of the Sinn Fein building. It is a quote from Bobby Sands, the first of the ten hunger strike victims to die. He was elected to office while he was in prison and while he was on his hunger strike, which showed the political power of this movement.
Sinn Fein headquarters on Falls Road. I wasn't lucky enough to go inside because they just closed. I am definitely a supporter of Sinn Fein, which is Irish Gaelic for "Ourselves." Thus, denoting that they wished to be separate and independent from Great Britain.
Sinn Fein Headquarters. Notice the Irish Flag. It's illegal to fly the Irish flag in Northern Ireland but they get away with it here.
These are some of the Shankill Road Murals, a Protestant Neighborhood. Note the emphasis on hooded paramilitary. We so often see the IRA as hooded terrorist by the media and we don't often see the other side. People don't realize that there is another side. This is that other side.
UVF - Ulster Volunteer Force. The UVF would be the Protestant equivalent of the IRA.
Here are some up close views of the steel walls and fences that separate the neighborhoods.
Some graffiti. Taigs = durogatory term for Catholic.
"Up the pope smokers"
This is me standing in front of the steel gate that kept us from getting to our car. Our car was just on the other side of this gate. We had to walk five miles to find a way out of the Shankill road area and back to Falls Road.
Also, I have some other pretty interesting photos from Derry, where Bloody Sunday occurred, if anyone is interested. It gives another perspective of the politics of Northern Ireland.
This is a large "H" (obviously) in remembrance of the H-block prison hunger strikers that died in the early 80's.The H-Block prison is a very fascinating and tragic story. Basically these men died because they refused to be referred to as criminals. They wanted to be called "Prisoners of War" and thus given basic rights of a P.O.W. because to them, they were fighting what they considered an illegally occupying government.
Margaret Thatcher let ten of them die of hunger strikes (the two in the middle died in the h-blocks at an earlier time but I'm not sure of what but they weren't hunger strikers).
At the top..."SAOIRSE"...Irish for "Freedom"
The following sign says "Welcome to Falls Road" in Irish Gaelic.It must be noted that painting murals is illegal in Belfast. There are far less murals in the Catholic neighborhoods than in the Protestant Neighborhoods and that could be due to the fact that until recent times, the police and the government was over 90% protestant.
Notice the high steel fence.
I thought this was interesting. There were a lot of murals on Falls Road that had nothing to do with the politics of Belfast but this one, I thought, was very interesting.
This is the most famous mural on the side of the Sinn Fein building. It is a quote from Bobby Sands, the first of the ten hunger strike victims to die. He was elected to office while he was in prison and while he was on his hunger strike, which showed the political power of this movement.
Sinn Fein headquarters on Falls Road. I wasn't lucky enough to go inside because they just closed. I am definitely a supporter of Sinn Fein, which is Irish Gaelic for "Ourselves." Thus, denoting that they wished to be separate and independent from Great Britain.
Sinn Fein Headquarters. Notice the Irish Flag. It's illegal to fly the Irish flag in Northern Ireland but they get away with it here.These are some of the Shankill Road Murals, a Protestant Neighborhood. Note the emphasis on hooded paramilitary. We so often see the IRA as hooded terrorist by the media and we don't often see the other side. People don't realize that there is another side. This is that other side.
UVF - Ulster Volunteer Force. The UVF would be the Protestant equivalent of the IRA.
Here are some up close views of the steel walls and fences that separate the neighborhoods.
Some graffiti. Taigs = durogatory term for Catholic."Up the pope smokers"
This is me standing in front of the steel gate that kept us from getting to our car. Our car was just on the other side of this gate. We had to walk five miles to find a way out of the Shankill road area and back to Falls Road.
Sunday 22 March 2009
The Tollund Man
I thought you might enjoy seeing some images of the Tollund Man. He dates from the 4th Century BC and was discovered in Denmark in 1950. I think seeing these images might add to your reading of Heaney's poem. And, if you want to see some truly AMAZING photography of bog-preserved bodies (and who wouldn't, right?), go to http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/bog-bodies/clark-photography. The first photo, which is of the Tollund Man, is arresting. So are many others.
Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.
Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.
Thursday 19 March 2009
Seamus Heaney Reading List
Monday
“Digging” (3)
“Death of a Naturalist” (5)
“Blackberry-Picking” (7)
“Requiem for the Croppies” (23)
“The Wife’s Tale” (25)
“Bogland” (41)
“The Other Side” (59)
“The Tollund Man” (62)
“Limbo” (72)
Wednesday
“Punishment” (112)
“Summer, 1969” (132)
“The Toome Road” (143)
“The Strand at Lough Beg” (145)
“The Singer’s House” (153)
“The Otter” (167)
“The Skunk” (168)
“The Harvest Bow” (175)
“In Memorium Francis Ledwidge” (176)
Friday
“Changes” (211)
“The Railway Children” (216)
“The Haw Lantern” (275)
“The Pitchfork” (320)
“Two Lorries” (378)
“A Call” (403)
“Postscript” (411)
“Crediting Poetry” (413-430)*
*“Crediting Poetry” is Heaney’s 1995 Nobel Lecture
“Digging” (3)
“Death of a Naturalist” (5)
“Blackberry-Picking” (7)
“Requiem for the Croppies” (23)
“The Wife’s Tale” (25)
“Bogland” (41)
“The Other Side” (59)
“The Tollund Man” (62)
“Limbo” (72)
Wednesday
“Punishment” (112)
“Summer, 1969” (132)
“The Toome Road” (143)
“The Strand at Lough Beg” (145)
“The Singer’s House” (153)
“The Otter” (167)
“The Skunk” (168)
“The Harvest Bow” (175)
“In Memorium Francis Ledwidge” (176)
Friday
“Changes” (211)
“The Railway Children” (216)
“The Haw Lantern” (275)
“The Pitchfork” (320)
“Two Lorries” (378)
“A Call” (403)
“Postscript” (411)
“Crediting Poetry” (413-430)*
*“Crediting Poetry” is Heaney’s 1995 Nobel Lecture
Tuesday 3 March 2009
Elizabeth Bowen and Anglo-Irishness
In one of my volumes on Modern Irish writers (Modern Irish Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, ed. Alexander Gonzalez), the entry on Elizabeth Bowen, written by Barbara Suess (that's Dr. Suess, not Dr. Seuss), begins this way:"Although she was revered more for her 'Anglo' works than her 'Irish' works, Elizabeth Bowen's Anglo-Irish upbringing in the early twentieth century provided her a unique position from which to view--and write about--Ireland. Bowen's Irish works, the large body of short stories, novels, reviews, and essays devoted to Irish subjects, characters, and settings, are an impressive literary legacy that need no apology."
This entry is a great way to begin a discussion about Bowen and, by extension, to continue our discussions about "Anglo-Irish" literature. There are several assumptions running beneath Suess's paragraph. First, she assumes that one can distinguish between Bowen's "Anglo" works and her "Irish" works. If Bowen's "subjects, characters, and settings" are "Irish," then so is the work in question. But this can be problemetic since defining what is "Irish" about a character or subject is not a simple task, as we discussed early on (we decided, for example, that Wilde and Yeats are both problematic in this way). Suess writes that Bowen's "Irish" works need no apology, and by this she presumably means they do not need to justify their "Irish-ness." Well, why would they? One answer is that Bowen grew up in a manor house in Cork, in a well-off Protestant family with English ties, and this put her at odds with writers who were more "authentically" (that is, Catholically and Dublinally) "Irish." She also spent much of her time in England, and many of her works (including Death of the Heart) are set in England. These works are what Suess calls Bowen's "Anglo" works, and one wonders whether she means to imply that these do need an apology of some kind for being set in England and containing English characters. Or maybe it is the fact that Bowen hung around the likes of T. S. Eliot (see the above photograph from the National Portrait Gallery), Virginia Woolf, and other very non-Irish modernists. But no matter the reason, the very suggestion, however slight it may be, that Bowen has to justify, or somehow apologize for, her any work because it is not "Irish" enough tells us something about how Anglo-Irish literature is often perceived and discussed.
So we are back to this question again: Is Irish-ness simply a matter of geography? Must Irish literature be set in Ireland? What makes a work of literature Irish, the author or the subject matter? Some combination of these? Is C. S. Lewis, who was born in Belfast to a father of Welsh blood, an Irish writer? He is not commonly included in the Irish "canon." I intentionally included The Death of the Heart on the syllabus because I wanted to raise these questions. I might have included The Last September, which is typically categorized as one of Bowen's "Irish" works, but it is not as good of a novel. Should I have put it on anyway because it is partially set in Ireland? Are you reading this book and thinking, "What the heck does this have to do with Ireland?" (It's okay if you are, by the way.)
One other thing: If you read Suess's paragraph again, you will detect the suggestion, though it is not a stated claim, that Bowen writes about Ireland from the perspective of an outsider. I think this is true, but I hasten to add that Bowen, like many of the so-called "Anglo-Irish," experienced a kind of identity crisis brought on by a cultural rootlessness. They were not simply Englishmen and Englishwomen looking at Ireland. They were, in many cases, deracinated Irishmen and Irishwomen who felt just as out of place in England as they did in Ireland. If we look at Portia as a type of this character, a type that appears in many of Bowen's works, we can start to appreciate the psychology of the outsider, the estranged, and this is a character that is extremely important to Modern Irish literature, at least in my view. In other words, all of Bowen's work is written from the perspective of an outsider, not just her "Irish" works (I obviously don't separate her "Anglo" works from her "Irish" works because I think these can be used too easily and categorically, and at times falsely).
I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this.
One other thing: If you read Suess's paragraph again, you will detect the suggestion, though it is not a stated claim, that Bowen writes about Ireland from the perspective of an outsider. I think this is true, but I hasten to add that Bowen, like many of the so-called "Anglo-Irish," experienced a kind of identity crisis brought on by a cultural rootlessness. They were not simply Englishmen and Englishwomen looking at Ireland. They were, in many cases, deracinated Irishmen and Irishwomen who felt just as out of place in England as they did in Ireland. If we look at Portia as a type of this character, a type that appears in many of Bowen's works, we can start to appreciate the psychology of the outsider, the estranged, and this is a character that is extremely important to Modern Irish literature, at least in my view. In other words, all of Bowen's work is written from the perspective of an outsider, not just her "Irish" works (I obviously don't separate her "Anglo" works from her "Irish" works because I think these can be used too easily and categorically, and at times falsely).
I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of this.
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