Applying the Rubric
The Elective: Navigating the Global
Heaney's poetry: - Poetry of the self, the role of the poet - Poetry of Irish rural background - Has a 'sense of place' - Personal memory and sense of the local - Links land/history/self - Reaches beyond the parochial, to transcend the borders and barriers of Ireland "Digging" = "Navigating" Digging is to excavate and reveal, digging through history of Ireland to understand the self, the present, looking inwards, downwards and through, searching and discovering as a source of inspiration. Heaney often retreats and disconnects from the present by looking into the past, there finding the universal. |
The Module: Texts and Ways of Thinking
Does Heaney's writing demonstrate these ways of thinking? Postmodernity - Culture is an invention - Truth is ambiguous - Celebrates diversity and localisations - The individuals context is important - Hybridity - The postmodern tradition: at once once universal yet still challenging it Post-Colonial Theory - Need for understanding our origins and forming solid, coherent identities - An attempt to resurrect cultures and to combat preconceptions about cultures Terrorism - The unofficial or unauthorised use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. GLOBAL - The wider world - English, Protestant, Republican - Colonialism - Poetry reaches beyond irish borders and barriers, transcends time and place - Links to other cultures (allusion etc.) - "a here and everywhere" note - Loss of rituals associated with tradition and culture LOCAL - Finding a value in the local - Postcolonial claiming of the Irish voice - Embracing of definite Irish character - Parochial, local stories and history - Preservation of culture - Sense of place, sense of the sacred - Nostalgia and sentimentality - link to ancestry and identity |