Heaney, Joyce: Namings and Nation


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Type
Article
Change log
Authors
Dukes, Hunter 
Abstract

During an interview with Dennis O'Driscoll published in the 2008 volume Stepping Stones, Seamus Heaney recalls a two-line poem from his childhood: 'Two sticks standing and one across / Spells Willie Brennan in Hillhead Moss'. If, as Heaney suspects, the poem appeals to a child's mind, it is probably because it conjures an image that appears untrue. At right angles, a pair of vertical sticks crossed by a horizontal makes an 'H' shape, a letter that does not begin to 'spell' Willie Brennan in Hillhead Moss in any literal sense. If the sticks are placed at acute angles, forming an 'A', the same problem arises. With both images lacking correspondence, one begins to wonder if 'spell' is meant in a different sense - closer to 'signifies' or 'evidences'. That is Heaney's understanding of the line, anyway, for he describes the poem as an '"unlettered" performance' before drawing a parallel with Ulysses.

Description
Keywords
47 Language, Communication and Culture, 4705 Literary Studies
Journal Title
Essays in Criticism
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
0014-0856
1471-6852
Volume Title
68
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)