Traditions -- Seamus Heaney

For Tom Flanagan

I

Our guttural muse
was bulled long ago
by the alliterative tradition,
her uvula grows

vestigial, forgotten
like the coccyx
or a Brigid's Cross
yellowing in some outhouse

while custom, that "most
sovereign mistress",
beds us down into
the British isles.

II

We are to be proud
of our Elizabethan English:
"varsity", for example,
is grass-roots stuff with us;

we "deem" or we "allow"
when we suppose
and some cherished archaisms
are correct Shakespearean.

Not to speak of the furled
consonants of lowlanders
shuttling obstinately
between bawn and mossland.

III

MacMorris, gallivanting
around the Globe, whinged
to courtier and groundling
who had heard tell of us

as going very bare
of learning, as wild hares,
as anatomies of death:
"What ish my nation?"

And sensibly, though so much
later, the wandering Bloom
replied, "Ireland," said Bloom,
"I was born here. Ireland."

From: http://www.emule.com/2poetry/phorum/read.php?4,176744,177054

In this poem, we can see a strange case: a person who is criticizing a situation. Ireland’s people and writers think that “academic” English is better than their own language. However, in my own opinion, this is a paradox, because the author uses the “academic” English to criticize the use of this language. It is also true that this is not an exceptional example in Irish literature; we must remember that since the 18^th century, Ireland has experienced an important increase of nationalism, although this new valuation does not mean that Irish writers returned to use the Gaelic language. We can see many examples of this, like Yeats, Shaw and Joyce (Irish culture and customs).

This poem is titled “traditions” and this title gives us the global tone of the poem: the poet protests against a situation, but he does it without rage, he is not looking for guilty ones, he assumes that the problem is the tradition.

The poem is divided into three parts, and each part is divided into three stanzas. In the first and in the second parts, the poet establishes an opposition between England and Ireland based on the language: the English language uses the “alliterative” tradition, and the Irish language uses the “guttural muse”. English is a very accurate language, while Irish is the language of “lowlanders/shuttling obstinately/between bawn and mossland”.

We can observe that the author includes himself in these two parts, but he does it in different ways: in the first part, he includes himself in the guttural tradition, he’s in the Irish part of the opposition; however, in the second part, he includes himself in the part which uses the Elizabethan English, and not in the Irish part, which uses he lowlanders’ consonants.

In the first part we can also see a question that we have talked about above. The poet talks about the relation between England and Ireland with the word “custom” so we can notice that he sees the relation between this two countries without rage.

In the third part the poet joins together the two groups that he has established before “courtier and groundling”, and talks very clearly, the language is not the problem, the deep problem is that the English people (this part is not explicit in the poem, but I think it can be supposed by anybody) thinks that the Irish people “is very bare/ of learning, as wild hares/ as anatomies of death”.

Finally, in the conclusion of the poem, we can see another time the author’s attitude in this discussion when he thinks about the problem. Bloom doesn’t blame England for this opinions, he “sensibly” says that “I was born there Ireland”. In my opinion, this sentence can explain the author’s attitude. He is Irish, so he has some Irish characteristics, and the English people have others, but they are not better or worst, simply they are different. And if the Irish people assumes English characteristics, the guilty ones will be the Irish citizens, because they do not value their own culture

Bibliography:

· Seamus Heaney Poetry Irish culture and customs.

bhaggerty@irishcultureandcustoms.com. Visited 5 May 2006.

http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/Poetry/SeamsHeaney.html

· Reference.com/Enciclopedia/Seamus Heaney.

Source: Wikipedia, the free Encyclopediaã2001-2006. Wikipedia contributors.

Visited 5 May 2006.

http://www.reference,com/browse/wiki/Seamus_Heaney

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