INSTRUCTIONS
In this unit you will analyse a poem called “Digging,” by an Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. The unit is organised as follows:
1. The Objectives for the unit are listed.
2. “Warm-Up”: This includes background information and several questions to prepare you for the reading of the poem.
3. The Text: The poem and a glossary of some of the more difficult words follow.
4. Sections I & II: The task of reading and analysing the poem is divided into two sections. Do not try to do both sections at one sitting.
5. “Rounding Off”: The aim of these exercises is to help you “put the text together again” after the analysis by focusing on your interpretation of the text and re sponse to it as a complete piece.
6. The Summary at the end reviews what has been covered in this unit.
7. An Answer Key [not included in this article] is pro vided at the back of the unit. You may look up the an swers as you complete each exercise, but do not look them up before you have tried them. The answer key also contains a few notes on some of the terminology that is used in literary analysis. Do not attempt to learn these “off by heart,” but make sure you understand them in relation to this poem.
Remember: Read the poem as many times as you like (aloud
and silently) and use your dictionary to look up words you do not understand.
OBJECTIVES
The aim of this unit is to give you practice in reading and analysing the poem “Digging.” The exercises are de signed to “show” you how the language is manipulated by the poet to give the poem its particular meaning and effect.
By the end of the unit, you should understand how the following have been used in this poem:
• figurative uses of language • “structural” patterns • “word” patterns • “sound” patterns
WARM-UP
1. Before you read the poem by Seamus Heaney, read these notes on his background:
Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 in Northern Ireland into a Catholic family in a farming community. As you might know, Ireland is divided into two countries. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom (consisting of England, Scot- land, Wales, and Northern Ireland) and has a Protestant majority. It has been at war with the predominantly Catholic Republic of Ireland since 1921. A lot of Heaney’s early poetry
explores just what it means to be part of a minority group in a hostile country.
Themes that run through his early poetry include the search for an identity—both for his country and for him- self—and the role of a poet in a war-torn society. How can he help build an identity for the country that overrides the polit- ical differences? Does his work have a purpose? Because of his farming background, his poetry often reflects a tension be- tween work that is manual and land-based, and that which is intellectual and scholastic.
2. Write down a few phrases in answer to each of these questions:
a. What should the role of a poet in a society be if this
society is: torn by conflict, and searching for an identity? (Think about the role of South African poets.)
b. Knowing what you do about the poet’s background,
what do you think a poem with the title “Digging” might be about?
3. Now read the poem (several times).
The exercises that follow are divided into two sections: I. whAt is the poem about?
II. how has the poet used the language to give the poem its particular meaning and effect?
The exercises in each section should help you answer these questions. An answer key is provided at the end.
SECTION I:
What is the poem about?1. The poem begins with a description of the poet’s fa ther at work. What did he do for a living?
2. Read lines 116 again. Is the poet’s father really under his window, or is the poet recalling an event from the past?
a. In which tense or tenses are these lines written? Do
you notice a change at line 9?
b. Look back to question 2, and make sure you still
agree with your answer to that question.
c. Tick those words you think describe the poet’s
atti tude to his father and then quote words or phrases from the poem to support your choices: AdmIrAtIon, FeAr, shAme, respect, prIde, pIty.
3. Read lines 1624. Line 16 introduces the poet’s grandfather, his father’s “old man.” Like his father, his grandfather is a labourer.
Now read the following statements and decide whether they are “true” (T) or “false” (F):
The poet admires his grandfather because: A. He drinks milk.
B. He is doing physical work. C. He is the only worker on the bog. D. He is a skilful worker.
4. Lines 324 described the two men at work. At line 25, however, the poem changes.
a. Can you say how it changes?
b. What smells and sounds are described in lines 25 and
26?
c. What is meant by “roots” in line 27? Notice that they
are “living” and “in his head.” 5. Read lines 2831.
a. The poet says he cannot do the same work as his
forefathers. What will he do instead?
b. Compare the first stanza with the last. List the
similarities and differences between them.
c. The similarities bring us back to the beginning of the
poem. It is as though the poet has come full circle. But is he really back where he began? What has changed?
You should by now have some understanding of the meaning of the poem and of a few of the ways in which the poet has manipulated the language to achieve certain ef fects (for example, the repetition with significant alter ations of the first and last stanzas). Now have a break from this poem, and then reread it and attempt the more de tailed analysis in Section II.
SECTION II:
How does the poet use the language tocreate the particular meaning and effects in his/her poem?
“Figurative expressions” (e.g., personification, simile, metaphor) are some of the “devices” frequently used by poets to create these special patterns of meaning.
1. The following exercise explores Heaney’s use of
metaphor in “Digging.”
a. Look at the words below. Divide them into two
groups and give a reason for the way in which you have grouped them: spade
dig roots pen gun
b. Now underline all the occurrences of the words (and
their variants) in the poem. Don’t forget the title.
c. Compare:
line 2 with lines 3031
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
In line 2, the poet likens the pen to a . In line 30, he likens it to a .
Does this change in the meaning of pen tell us anything about a change in the poet’s attitude towards his work? Look back to your answer to Section I, question 5c and see whether you still agree with your answer.
d. Now look again at the title. How many different
meanings does the word digging have in this poem? Write them down. Can you see how digging becomes a metaphor for the poet’s search for an identity?
It is always a good idea to look at the title of a poem, as it often gives you a clue to the central metaphor or controlling idea in the poem.
Two characteristics of poetic writing are: 1. unusual “patternings” of sounds and words 2. unlikely combinations of words not normally placed together in everyday language.
Watch for these “devices” in the exercises which follow.
2. Poets choose their words very carefully. This exercise is designed to develop your sensitivity to the way writers use
word associations and connotations to create literary effects. a. Look at line 10 below and then compare it with the re
written version below:
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, . . .
rewritten:
The coarse boot placed on the lug, . . .
What has the rewritten version lost from the original? To help you answer this question, think about how we normally use the word nestle:
1. to refer to live or dead things?
2. to refer to a situation in which fear or uncertainty exists? 3. to suggest affection and closeness?
b. Now think about the word coarse. Which of the
words and expressions below describe its meaning: common
leather vulgar rough
Are these the sorts of qualities you would expect to find in “something” which “nestled” on something else?
c. Now look at line 2:
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun
Compare the connotations of the words below from line 2 and line 10. Put a cross on the scale for each one, de pending on whether you judge it to have a positive (pleas ant) or negative (unpleasant) connotation. If a word has neither, mark it with an “N” in the centre of the line. I have begun the exercise for you. (Use your dictionary to check the meanings.)
squat + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – N X X pen rests snug gun coarse boot nestled
3. This next exercise explores the effects of sound
pat terns in “Digging.”
a. Look at lines 2527 again. Earlier (Section I, question
4b) we noted that certain sensations (sound and smell) were described.
Words in a poem relate to each other. They are not isolated units. They form patterns, and these tell us something about the rela- tionship between “things” in the poem. For example, the above patterns set up a paral- lel between the activity of digging and that of writing poetry.
Another “device” used by poets to create spe- cial effects are patterns of sound. That is why you should always read poems aloud to yourself.
Imagine to yourself how soggy peat that was squelching and slapping might sound. Could it be similar to the sound made when one walks through very wet mud in rubber soled shoes?
Notice how the poet has used the sounds of the words to echo the sounds they de scribe: the repetition of the “s” sound echoes what one might hear when digging soggy peat or walking through wet mud.
Now mark the repeated “s” sounds in the lines below:
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head.
b. Other sounds are repeated in the same
lines. Mark these other repetitions. Explain how they echo the meaning, if they do.
Read the poem through to yourself aloud and notice how the sounds pattern through the whole poem.
ROUNDING OFF
1. Read the poem through once more. Do you like the poem? Look back at the ques tions asked in WarmUp question 2a. Has studying this poem helped you develop your ideas?
2. A list of interpretations of the poem fol lows. Rank the statements in an order from that which you think best captures the mean ing of the poem to that which you think does so least.
A: The poem is in memory of the poet’s fa ther and grandfather.
B: The poem explores the poet’s family history. C: The poet is searching for a role in a society
in which guns are the means of protest. D: The poet is seeking an identity both in the
history of his family and in the broader history of Ireland.
E: The poet feels uneasy about not carrying either a spade or a gun. That is, he feels uneasy about not being involved with either working on the land or fighting in the war.
SUMMARY In this unit, you should have:
1. developed an understanding of the poem “Digging;”
2. explored the concept of metaphor, e.g., the significance of the word digging in the poem;
3. examined how poets use “patterns” to cre ate certain literary effects:
“structural” patterns, e.g., the repetition with alterations of the first and last stanzas; “word” patterns, e.g., the balancing of positive and negative connotations in line 2 and line 10;
“sound” patterns, e.g., the use of allitera tive /s/ and /p/ sounds to echo the sound of digging wet peat;
4. discovered what the following terms mean and how they work in this poem: conno- tAtIon, AllIterAtIon, AssonAnce, conso- nAnce, and onomAtopoeIA.
Glossary of words in the poem:
rasping (l. 3): a rough scraping sound gravelly (l. 4): stony
rump (l. 6): lower back, bottom levered (l. 11): lifted against sloppily (l. 20): carelessly nicking (l. 22): cutting curt (l. 26): short, quick
old man (l. 15): term of affection to refer to one’s
father
could handle a spade (l. 15): was very skilful at using
a spade
fell to right away (l. 21): returned to the job of dig
ging immediately
In Ireland, the basic crop is potatoes, and peat or turf is cut from the bogs to burn as fuel.
potato drills (l. 8): repetitious and routinelike action
of digging potatoes
turf (l. 17): a “brick” of earth held together by roots
and with short grass growing on it
bog (1. 18): wet ground from which bricks of decom
posing earth are cut; similar to a swamp
sods (l. 22): pieces of wet turf
mould (l. 25): fungus that grows on wet surfaces peat (l. 26): wet turf that is beginning to turn into
coal and is cut for use as fuel
shaft (l. 10) lug (l. 10)