Comment on Heaney’s presentation of memory in ‘xli’ and discuss how far
this reflects the style and concerns of other poems in ‘Seeing Things’
Heaney dedicates the entirety of Seeing Things to exploring the transportive nature of
memory and its unique relationship with time. Particularly in the second half of the
anthology – Squarings – these themes are manifested in the consistent structure of four
tercets, and the recurrence of techniques, which unite the poems, though they often focus
on different concepts surrounding memory. The poem xli essentially expresses the sensation
of remembering, as well as approaching the dichotomous feelings that surround nostalgia.
Heaney immediately establishes the cyclical nature of memory through an abundance of
repetition in the opening stanza of xli. Both the words ‘bed’ and ‘river’ occur twice, whilst he
also employs the anaphoric repetition of the two words ‘I knew’. This not only reflects the
idea that memory is fundamentally the recreation of a moment, but also galvanises the
theme of duality that ensues in the poem. Primarily, this is the product of the conceit of
water resembling memory that forms over the course of the four stanzas, which results in
two different narratives unfolding simultaneously in the poem. On the one hand, Heaney is
describing how it felt to ‘swim’ in a ‘river’ as a child and the ‘fear’, yet excitement that came
with jumping into the cold water. However, upon acknowledging the conceit, he is depicting
the feeling of ‘re-enter[ing]’ the past and the ‘currents’ of ‘memory’, and aligning it with the
sensation of entering water in childhood. So, Heaney utilises a memory to explain to the
reader how it feels to remember. This somewhat complex and confounding elucidation
mirrors the vague nature of memories and their common unreliability. With this metaphor,
nostalgia is portrayed paradoxically as something ‘sweet’ that one ‘rid[es]’ and also
something ‘quell[ed]’ and ‘fear[ed]’, therefore harbouring a fundamental duality in itself.
This concept is again articulated by Heaney in xv, though through the use of extreme
juxtaposing imagery. The first and last stanzas are crowded with glorified, extravagant
images of beauty, whilst the central two contrast this with an abrasive sense of reality. This
is actualised through a semantic field of sensory imagery, as the first stanza is littered with
words relating to warm, bright light: ‘strike’, ‘gold’, ‘gleam’ and ‘burnish’, juxtaposed by the
following two, which create a real sense of darkness in the ‘scene’, as the ‘lamp’ is being
‘held up at eye-level’ and the ‘bacon’ has to be ‘pulled up into the light’. Not only this, the
duality continues as the extravagance in allusions like ‘Rembrandt’ and ‘piled grain of Egypt’
are conflicted by bleak, simplistic references like ‘hurricane lamp’, ‘tea-chest’ and ‘bacon’,
further fuelled by harsh plosives, such as in ‘bunched left fist’. Thus, Heaney informs the
reader of the opposing “good” and “bad” feelings involved in nostalgia, whilst also
broaching the concept of memory vs reality.
The poet conveys memory as a distorted version of reality in xli by manipulating its form.
Heaney contrasts bursts of extreme caesura, like the first line: ‘Sand-bed, they said. And
gravel-bed.’, and in the last stanza: ‘Lick of fear. Sweet transience. Flirt and splash.’, with
long intervals of enjambement, including between stanzas. This creates a broken,
inconsistent rhythm which reflects the disfigurement that often occurs in memories,
compared to the actuality of the moment. It may also display the two common ways in
which memories come back to us: in short snippets or flashes of action, or memories which
merge and flow into one another, making it hard to differentiate between them.
this reflects the style and concerns of other poems in ‘Seeing Things’
Heaney dedicates the entirety of Seeing Things to exploring the transportive nature of
memory and its unique relationship with time. Particularly in the second half of the
anthology – Squarings – these themes are manifested in the consistent structure of four
tercets, and the recurrence of techniques, which unite the poems, though they often focus
on different concepts surrounding memory. The poem xli essentially expresses the sensation
of remembering, as well as approaching the dichotomous feelings that surround nostalgia.
Heaney immediately establishes the cyclical nature of memory through an abundance of
repetition in the opening stanza of xli. Both the words ‘bed’ and ‘river’ occur twice, whilst he
also employs the anaphoric repetition of the two words ‘I knew’. This not only reflects the
idea that memory is fundamentally the recreation of a moment, but also galvanises the
theme of duality that ensues in the poem. Primarily, this is the product of the conceit of
water resembling memory that forms over the course of the four stanzas, which results in
two different narratives unfolding simultaneously in the poem. On the one hand, Heaney is
describing how it felt to ‘swim’ in a ‘river’ as a child and the ‘fear’, yet excitement that came
with jumping into the cold water. However, upon acknowledging the conceit, he is depicting
the feeling of ‘re-enter[ing]’ the past and the ‘currents’ of ‘memory’, and aligning it with the
sensation of entering water in childhood. So, Heaney utilises a memory to explain to the
reader how it feels to remember. This somewhat complex and confounding elucidation
mirrors the vague nature of memories and their common unreliability. With this metaphor,
nostalgia is portrayed paradoxically as something ‘sweet’ that one ‘rid[es]’ and also
something ‘quell[ed]’ and ‘fear[ed]’, therefore harbouring a fundamental duality in itself.
This concept is again articulated by Heaney in xv, though through the use of extreme
juxtaposing imagery. The first and last stanzas are crowded with glorified, extravagant
images of beauty, whilst the central two contrast this with an abrasive sense of reality. This
is actualised through a semantic field of sensory imagery, as the first stanza is littered with
words relating to warm, bright light: ‘strike’, ‘gold’, ‘gleam’ and ‘burnish’, juxtaposed by the
following two, which create a real sense of darkness in the ‘scene’, as the ‘lamp’ is being
‘held up at eye-level’ and the ‘bacon’ has to be ‘pulled up into the light’. Not only this, the
duality continues as the extravagance in allusions like ‘Rembrandt’ and ‘piled grain of Egypt’
are conflicted by bleak, simplistic references like ‘hurricane lamp’, ‘tea-chest’ and ‘bacon’,
further fuelled by harsh plosives, such as in ‘bunched left fist’. Thus, Heaney informs the
reader of the opposing “good” and “bad” feelings involved in nostalgia, whilst also
broaching the concept of memory vs reality.
The poet conveys memory as a distorted version of reality in xli by manipulating its form.
Heaney contrasts bursts of extreme caesura, like the first line: ‘Sand-bed, they said. And
gravel-bed.’, and in the last stanza: ‘Lick of fear. Sweet transience. Flirt and splash.’, with
long intervals of enjambement, including between stanzas. This creates a broken,
inconsistent rhythm which reflects the disfigurement that often occurs in memories,
compared to the actuality of the moment. It may also display the two common ways in
which memories come back to us: in short snippets or flashes of action, or memories which
merge and flow into one another, making it hard to differentiate between them.
