셰이머스 히니의 포용과 화합의 시학

Seamus Heaney’s Poetics of Embracement and Harmony

This paper aims to explore how Seamus Heaney seeks harmony in his divided country through his language-related poems. It is almost inevitable that writers who have experienced colonization face confusion on their own identity. This is because they write in the language of imperialists instead of using their mother tongue. Irish writers have also encountered this phenomenon as other writers whose countries were colonized. So in Ireland, there was a movement, especially in the 19th century, to restore their language, which was thought to reveal Irish nationality. In Ireland, however, the Gaelic conservation policy failed since English was a means of social success. On the one hand, Heaney also talks about grief at disappearing Gaelic, showing how it was faded away by the colonialists’ language, which was English. On the other hand, rather than trying to revive Gaelic for national identity, Heaney propounds a common language that embraces all the people on the island of Ireland. Irish English, a combination of Gaelic vowels and English consonants, allows the Irish to be away from chauvinism that once caused brutal violence in Ireland. Moreover, this language, which transcends race, religion, etc., is a good example of cultural diversity which has been accumulated through their history. This is the harmonious image and embracement that Heaney desires through Irish English.