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Seamus Heaney’s Prose Style Heaney is a poet, critic and accomplished prose writer. Without any hesitation, he is the most prolific ( ) writer of the modern era. He presents his views with great force and rigorous ( ) logical style. He is very much clear in his thoughts and this makes his style lucid and charming. He has a great store of knowledge also that makes him clear headed and honest in his opinions. He is a teacher of English literature and a poet himself that has greatly served his prose style. As William Logom asserts;
“Heaney has the most flexible and beautiful lyric voice of our age. And his prose often answers his poetry in a run of subtle ( ) and subtly resonant ( ) phrasing.” The success of a prose writer depends on the skill, patience and experience of handling language. In this regard, Heaney’s prose style has the # # precision and consciousness (! " $ % ) of a mathematician. His vast knowledge, immense reading and spirit to know more also aided him greatly. In “The Redress of Poetry” he follows the scientific outlook and has used exact words with great care. He avoids ambiguities ( & '() * ) and where he thinks fit clarifies his point further. He uses the words with the greatest possible economy and avoids the meaningless empty talk. So, for Heaney proper words, in a proper place is true end of his writings. There are certain statements in the text of “The Redress of Poetry” that prove this point. As;
“The movement is from delight to wisdom and not vice versa.” At another point he comments about poetry;
“Poetry cannot afford to lose its fundamentally self-delighting inventiveness ( + ).” Commenting on the significance of poetry he writes;
“I want to profess the surprise of poetry as well as its reliability.” Heaney’s arguments base upon his own thinking as well as views of other great writers. We find views of T.S. Eliot, Havel, and Pinsky, references from Hardy, Herbert, Sydney, Borges, Plato, and Aristotle and so on. No doubt, at one hand this shows Heaney’s learning and reading of the ancient and the modern great writer, at the same time, it also make his case more forceful and worth pondering. Almost all his writings, including ‘‘The Redress of Poetry’’ Email:
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bear the high seriousness of his approach. In fact, his supreme intellectual , outlook, broadmindedness and impersonal attitude (. - ) and commitment with the purpose give him the title of a ‘Serious Writer’. Heaney quotes the noble writers whose views are not easy to be ignored and this adds strength to his defense of poetry. Poetry for Seamus Heaney is not a ‘pack of lies’ but something that creates nobility in life. To make his argument more forceful he gives Borges’ remarks: “The taste of the apple
lies in the contact of the fruit with the palate, not the fruit itself.” Heaney’s style is just a suitable medium for the expression of his thoughts. He avoids all literary artificial devices and writes in an unconscious effortless manner. This use of easy and simple language and appropriate words enables him to convey his meanings effectively. His arguments are lucid, rational and to the point. Heaney uses a language of comparison which also makes him very 0 popular. He uses the contradictory terms and the antitheses ( & / ) ) like 3 the heaven and earth, grace (12 ) and guilt, virtue and sin, imagination and reality, popular and common and above all the truth and the popular notions. In the same way, he compares poetry with both Philosophy and History. Even the views of the two great philosophers Plato and Aristotle are compared, giving his writings a power of analysis. This ability of arguments and the counter arguments establish his reputation as a ‘Classic Prose Analyst’ much in the line of Francis Bacon. But a strange mixture of romanticism is not absent from his writings. This saves his prose from being dull. Like the romantics, he has a firm faith in intuition ( * 4 5 ) and the power of nature to light the world. This all gives Heaney’s prose a kind of vitality hardly found in any other writer of his age. To sum up we can say that Seamus Heaney is the master of versatile prose style. There is a smooth unobstructed ( + 6 + 7 ) flow in Heaney’s language. His choice of concrete and meaningful words helps him in conveying his sense properly. There is no beating about the bush, nor is there heap of unnecessary details. He tries to convey his thoughts and meanings through appropriate language and words and avoids all superfluous and vague expressions. Moreover, he combines the scientific, the imaginative, the romantic and the classic expressions.
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Accusations against Poetry Or
Why did Heaney feel the need to defend poetry? Over the year, as a form of art poetry has been greatly criticized. Many have rejected it calling it a ‘foolish form of escapism’ and a ‘pack of lies.’ Some are not even ready to accept it a suitable subject to be read and taught. This attack on poetry is something that has continued over the years and is done even today. This propaganda against poetry seems to be subjective ( ), highly biased, and unreasonable. Let us now go through some of the accusations against poetry that forced Heaney to defend it. Plato, the great Greek philosopher attacked poetry saying: “All poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers.” To him every poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is twice away from the truth. Plato attacked poetry on intellectual, ethical and emotional grounds. On the intellectual side, he says, the poets have no knowledge of truth, since they imitate only appearances. It is only the reflection or shadow of the ideal world. Thus poetry can tell us nothing about this world of reality. The moral or ethical objection of Plato against poetry was the telling of lies. It can only please the vices and senses of the people by providing them what they like on emotional grounds. According to Plato; poetry feeds those emotions which should be starved. It makes the emotions control us when we might have controlled them. In the emotional poetry, reason is dominated by emotions. Besides it gives encouragement to unworthy emotions as well. 9
Another objection usually raised against poetry is its illogical (8 :; ) ) and irrational (<=%) -) approach. The poets with their emotional craziness and lack of moral restraint cannot guide the masses. When we analyze Plato’s observation with reference to our age, we will find that heaps of objections are still there. In modern times, it is usually propagated that the poetry is impractical for common people. Poetry deals with an ‘ideal’ world and the ‘ideal’ value of the things. The world of the poetry is the world of escapism. Where no one groans, no one cries for the need of daily utility. It takes the reader to a world of addiction and illusions. Half asleep and tranquil a reader becomes unfit to face the practical challenges of routine life. Email:
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Poetry whether it be romantic or classic is based upon theoretical concepts. This fact diminishes the range and scope of poetry as compared to the other subjects. In The Redress of Poetry, Heaney mentions the heckler who will want poetry to be more than an imagined response to the conditions in the world. For the political activists what is use of ‘imagining’ an order which is a complete set of events but cannot produce new events. Even if we accept the , ‘ideal’ presented by the poetry and the noble conception (1 $ ) of human nature, what help would it give practically to the society. If a poet has a soul stirring ( +> ?) @$) and mind enlightening experience, he has no magic to transfer it in his readers. The process of education and learning in poetry is subjective and might prove a help to the poet not the readers. Hence, images and dreams, no matter how inventive or original will remain just images to satisfy the aesthetic demands of the readers. Poetry over the years has been criticized for the fault of diction. Poets use far-fetched words and images, confusing the readers instead of giving them clarity of vision. The poets use a specialized vocabulary for the composition of poetry. Great poets like Alexander Pope, Dryden, Brown, and Addison etc. have been found culprit of complex and deliberately subtle poetic diction. Hence, instead of solving the problems of the society, poetry becomes a mere juggling of the words whose only pleasure is the ‘diction’ and not the ‘idea’. The poets C # # # write in an ornate (A B ) ) pompous ( + 4 ) style which instead of clarifying, bewilder ( + 4 D ) and confuse the reader. It neither convinces nor persuades. To conclude we may say that the poetry has been severely criticized. It has been called a useless knowledge and a waste of time. It has been said that there are other more fruitful knowledge and a man may better spend his time in them than poetry. Being twice removed from reality, it is ‘the mother of lies.’ Poetry produces desire in man to indulge in fancy (< 2 1 ), and day C dreaming. These all are the reasons that compelled Plato to banish ( + E ) ) poets from ‘Republic’. Seamus Heaney an ardent professor, critic and a famous poet could not hold a silent tongue and decided to defend poetry. No doubt, he has done it in a commendable way.
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Assignment = 3 HEANEY’S DEFENCE OF POETRY OR
HOW HAS HEANEY DEFENDED POETRY IN HIS REDRESSOF POETRY Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet and writer, was born in 1939 and awarded the Noble Prize in 1995. He is the most prolific writer of the modern era. He presents his views with great force and rigorous logical style. In “The Redress of Poetry” he has tried to defend poetry as a literary form, its function and its practicality in the real world. By Redress Heaney means: “Reparation ( )) ? ) of satisfaction or compensation for, a wrong sustained or the loss resulting from this.” Over the year, as a form of art poetry has been greatly criticized. Many have rejected it calling it a ‘foolish form of escapism’ and a ‘pack of lies.’ Plato, the great Greek philosopher attacked poetry in hardest possible way. To him every poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is twice away from the truth. Plato attacked poetry on intellectual, ethical and emotional grounds. On the intellectual side, he says, the poets have no knowledge of truth, since they imitate only appearances. Thus poetry can tell us nothing about this world of reality. The moral or ethical objection of Plato against poetry was the telling of lies. According to Plato; poetry feeds those emotions which should be starved. It makes the emotions control us when we might have controlled them. In the emotional poetry, reason is dominated by emotions. Aristotle was the great disciple of Plato who tried to show that; “Poetry was not only pleasant but also useful, for man and society.”Aristotle Email:
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observes that poetry is not concerned so much with what is but with what ought to be. These were the controversial remarks about poetry that forced Heaney to defend it. In “Redress of Poetry” Heaney has tried to defend poetry on practical grounds. In his defense of poetry, he quotes ( . D + < F + G ), gives personal views and refers to different poems as well. The first poem quoted in his book is George Herbert’s “The Pulley”. The subject matter of the poem is the importance of eternity. Our earth is a reality of an open day light, but the existence of the next world is ‘another’ type of ‘reality’. This is the sixth sense present in the poetry that combines the two realities. It guides us how to accept them and live the life accordingly. The idea about the life after death can only be given through poetry and not in any other subject. Then Heaney gives the reference of “Ode to Nightingale” the famous poem of JOHN KEATS. In this poem, the journey from ‘actual’ to the ‘ideal’ is beautifully depicted. In this Ode, the poet is bewitched by the world of HC nightingale ( + G 2 ( ). Actually, with the help of this example, Heaney wants to tell his readers that though, poetry is a flight of imagination yet its ultimate purpose is to give a moral lesson and to reveal the reality in the best possible way. “Poetry gives moral with pleasure”. Before a detailed analysis of his defense of poetry, Heaney quotes Robert Pinsky and agrees that it resembles his own notion of the redress of poetry. Pinsky says that a genuine poet never writes in compulsion because he always responds to the call of his heart. Moreover, Heaney further tries to raise the status of poetry above philosophy and History. Philosophy just give advises while history tells the facts. The aim of poetry is to represent the particular through the universal. As Robert Frost gives the message: “Earth’s the right place for Love.” Seamus Heaney moves ahead in his arguments with ‘Classic Clarity’ and ‘Romantic Zeal’. He agrees that the immediate aim of poetry is to give pleasure but it is not all. The ultimate end of this pleasure is wisdom. Hence, poetry travels from delight to knowledge.
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As for as, the composition of poetry is concerned, it is neither simple nor H H emotionally barren. Good poetry involves the interplay ( ": ": ) of the conscious and unconscious efforts of the poet. Herbert Read tries to sum up the process of composition in an accurate way. Good poetry is never an immediate reaction to the provided cause. The sensations must be allowed to sink deep in our mind. In the process of imagination, the sensations revive and with the unity of elements an expression is formed which is called poetry. W. Words Worth, a famous poet defends poetry as: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling. It takes its origin from emotions recollected JK in tranquility ( I L MN OPQ R).” Another charge against poetry is that, “what can be the function of poetry in a depressed era? Can poetry play a practical part in our life?” According to Heaney, the use of poetry for practical and social reasons as, revolution, war, politics and other government policies would narrow the scope of poetry. In text, Heaney says: “if you want to make poetry practical, then it will not remain poetry.” Poetry cannot bring political change. It tries to change the mind; it never gives straight facts but inspires people to bring change. If poetry is used for political purposes and practical necessities, it will not remain poetry but it would become a kind of propaganda. Like Aristotle, Heaney too is of the view: “It is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened but what may happen.” Keats says: - Poet is not a teacher but a preacher. Hence, poetry does not change life; it only tells what way of life is the best. Poetry based on common experience. The function of the poetry and the approach of the poet should be unbiased because a poet is the representative of humanity, talking to men not nations or politicians. Words Worth called poetry:”the most philosophical of all writings, the breath and finer spirit of all writings.” In this regard, Heaney praises W.B. Yeats who was an Irish and remembers the Irish people killed in 1916 Easter Rising. But he also talks of the English men who were killed and this grief for humanity had to be responded by poetry. So poetry is not weakened by force nor it is misguided by false notions, it offers comfort in affliction and tries to perpetuate the happiness.
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In the final stages of his arguments, Seamus Heaney gives the reference of Herbert’s most celebrated poem “The Collar”. The theme of this poem is that God loves the sinner and man gets closer to God because of his sins. This is the reality of human life and presented beautifully by the poet.
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