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Seeing Things (Magill Book Reviews)

The imagery of archaeology pervades the verse of Seamus Heaney. Digging tools, post-holes, grids constructed with tools and string, trenches and furrows appear, however, in farmlike settings. This is only natural, for Heaney synthesizes memories of the bog-side farm on which he was reared with his lifelong interest in the Iron Age cultures of northern Europe. Farmers upturn the soil and uncover old growth when they plant anew. Heaney uses pen for spade and searches for the roots of his past in order to understand the present.

SEEING THINGS continues the search. This collection differs from Heaney’s earlier verse in the sense that it goes beyond family or generational past. It is, in essence, poetic archaeology. The author’s translations of Vergil’s AENEID 6.98-148 and Dante’s INFERNO 3.82-129 frame the collection. Vergil influenced Dante: INFERNO uses Vergil as the Pilgrim’s guide; Aeneas searches for his dead father Anchises; the Pilgrim seeks a clear purpose for life. Heaney’s verse also evokes a dead father and seeks pattern and meaning in life. His quest goes beyond literary legacy. Heaney would consider it instinctive, rooted in universal memory.

Consequently, many of the poems in SEEING THINGS evoke a familiar response. Squared-grids mark the perimeter of a family’s new home. A forty-year old leather schoolbag continues in service. A bolt-lock opens welcomingly to admit one who belongs. Altering the sacred precinct (a skylight in a slate roof) at first seems sacrilegious, then offers a new way of seeing.

Suggesting ways of seeing the homely and familiar is essentially Heaney’s objective here. He also seeks common ground with his readers through the abstract, generalized memories every person has. This collection contains some of his finest poems, simple in subject but evocative. It requires only a reader-companion who is willing to share a journey into universal memory with its author.

Bibliography

Baley, John. “Seeing Things.” Review of Seeing Things, by Seamus Heaney. New York Review of Books 39 (June 25, 1992): 14-16. An overview of the work and its context in Heaney’s oeuvre.

Burris, Sidney. The Poetry of Resistance: Seamus Heaney and the Pastoral Tradition. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1990. The first full-length study of Heaney’s work. Notes and index.

Hirsch, Edward. Review of Seeing Things, by Seamus Heaney. The New York Times Book Review 97 (May 17, 1992): 7. A short review hailing the latest book by the Nobel laureate.

Morrison, Blake. Seamus Heaney. London: Methuen, 1982. A good first reference for Heaney’s life and works.

Salamagundi 80 (Fall, 1988). The entire issue is devoted to Heaney. Studies, a bibliography, an interview, and more.

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