Question

Explain the extended metaphor in the poem "Digging" by Seamus Heaney in 250 words.

Answer 1

In his poems "Digging" and "Personal Helicon" from his first anthology, Death of a Naturalist (1966), Heaney uses numerous metaphors and manipulates metaphorical language to describe his personal role as a poet. The metaphorical "digging" Heaney mentions in the final stanza "Between my finger and my thumb/ The squat pen rests./ I'll dig with it" with his hand. In this Heaney uses the non-literal digging metaphor that he himself embarks on as a poet to explore concepts of Irish culture and history.

The use of this metaphor is important in the light of the overall structure of the poem in that, by juxtaposing the metaphorical digging that Heaney sets out to pursue with his squat pen, with that of the actual digging carried out by figures in the poem such as the father and grandfather of the persona to establish ideas in the conventional sense in Irish digging and by this comparison, the complexity of the poem

In this contrast of Heaney's metaphor and actual digging "When the spake sinks into gravely ground:/ My father, digging But I don't have a spade to pursue men like them./ Between my finger and my thumb/ The squat pen rests./ I'll dig with it," Heaney is able to express his own role as a poet by eventually comparing his squat pen to a spade

"Private Helicon" serves more as an exploration of Heaney's own identity, established by his poetry job. Heaney manipulates a strong metaphorical language in the last stanza of the poem "I rhyme/ To see myself, to echo the darkness." Heaney describes the "darkness ringing" or repeating effect of darkness as an amorphous and ambiguous representation of his own subconscious mind through this use of metaphor. Thus the figurative path through his own subconscious mind through this use of Metaphor Heaney and through his work as a poet to acquire a sense of his own identity through an exploration of language visible in his poetry.