The Haw Lantern

"The Haw Lantern" (1987) is a collection of poems written by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney. It has a theme of loss and deals with the death of his mother, who died in 1984.

Here is an interpretation of some of the poems featured in the collection: The Haw Lantern (1987)

This collection of poems is believed to one of Heaney's most abstract collections and seems to lack the poetic precision and incisive attention to detail of Wintering Out and North. The title of the collection refers to the haw fruit, a type of berry. The berry is an important symbol of defiance against winter, a symbol of, the dignity of the Northern Irish in the face of violence, the dignity of people in the face of trouble and a small piece of light or hope in the darkness.

The lantern refers to the Greek myth of Diogenes. According to the myth, Diogenes carried a lantern through the streets in search of an honest man in the light. The implication is that there is little hope of finding an honest man, especially in the dire political situation in Northern Ireland.

:Alphabets:Glossary: :Part II:Declensions: Linguistics :a. In certain languages, the inflection of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in categories such as case, number, and gender. :b. A class of words of one language with the same or a similar system of inflections, such as the first declension in Latin. :hosanna: prayer:minatory: menacing:assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds within a sentence:teneberous: To do with trees:Merovingian:

:Part III:lambdas: eleventh letter of the Greek Alphabet:delta: A letter in the greek alphabet:necromancer: a type of magician or sorcerer:Christ’s sickle:

;Part I

This is a retrospective poem in which Heaney tries to recreate childhood memories and this is reflected in the simple language and imagery used here. There are typical references to childhood games such as making shadow puppets as well as memories of learning to read and write at primary school. Notice the simplicity of the imagery as the world is seen through fresh eyes: “the forked stick that they call a Y”. The child can only relate unfamiliar shapes and sounds to his own immediate, limited experience of the world. Heaney also uses the senses (sounds) to recall what it was once like to be in a classroom environment. There is nothing unusual or strange in these stanzas and we can all relate to the experiences being described. The image of the globe at the end of Part I symbolises the potential within the child to broaden his horizons as he grows up and this image is alluded to again at other points during the poem or during the child’s development.

;Part II

The second part of the poem progresses to Heaney’s later childhood where he begins learning Latin. Again, he compares the sound of the language to his own immediate experiences of life and his surroundings e.g. “Declensions sang on air like a hosanna”. A “hosanna” is a type of Latin prayer that Heaney would have heard being recited in the family home and at church.

The third stanza in Part II marks the point in Heaney’s life where he became fascinated by words. Many images of natural beauty are used to describe the shapes and sounds of the letters formed in his calligraphy class. Notice the series of tree metaphors:

:The letters of this alphabet were trees. :The capitals were orchards in full bloom, :The lines of script like briars coiled in ditches.

This imagery is highly reminiscent of that of Anhorish and Broagh where the poet links language and words to the natural world. Heaney then compares the process of writing to that of a hermit locking himself away. He uses this metaphor to not only to imply that good writing is not easily achieved but that it is a spiritual process that requires faith and dedication. The laborious element is represented in the metaphor of “the scribe/ Who drove a team of quills on his white field” whilst the more spiritual aspect is present in the hermit’s “self-denial” and fasting”.

;Part III

This part of the poem begins by referring back to the globe. The child has grown up, he is educated, time has passed and even the school has been knocked down. Here, we are given physical evidence of time passing and time’s destructive effect: “Time has bulldozed the school and school window.”

Heaney also describes the change in the landscape and compares the shapes created by the changes that have taken place: “The simple language of the poem’s first part has now been replaced with letters from the Greek alphabet which gives the poem an air of learnedness.

Stanzas 3 to 6 deal with various perceptions we have of the world and how oversight is developed with time. He refers to the “necromancer” hanging a figure of the world from his ceiling in order to see a whole, not just individual parts. This idea is continued in the image of the astronaut looking down at the world getting smaller as he leaves. This may suggest Heaney’s change in perception of his own place of origin.

All this suggests that Heaney’s perception of his place of birth has developed and changed over time from being fascinated by the plasterer “Skimming [their] gable and writing [their] name there” to being an adult who has broader horizons.

Hailstones: This poem, like Alphabets, addresses the learning curve of life. The hailstones are used as a metaphor to show how seemingly small and unimportant can be painful but that we must develop resilience.

The hailstone metaphor is continued in part II as Heaney describes children as “brats of showers”. This refers to the confusion and difficulty of Heaney’s school days. A “perfect” baby or toddler can soon transform into “dirty slush” The poet also addresses bullying as a result of the rift between Catholics and Protestants. The Catholic children were bullied:

:but for us, it was the sting of hailstones:and the unstingable hands of Eddie Diamond :foraging in the nettles,

Part III begins by describing the poet’s wounds, the aftermath of the hailstones: “Nipple and hive, bite-lumps”. However, there is an implication that childhood wasn’t only a negative experience and that Heaney was able to experience and experiment with things “disallowed” in adult life. This was life at its purest and most honest and the poet can only see this in retrospect. There is also an implication that life is a constant shower of hailstones, a constant learning curve, where we are hurt but must learn to forge ahead: “a car with wipers going still / laid perfect tracks in the slush”. This final image contrasts with the vulnerable child at the beginning of the poem having his cheeks “pelted”.

;From the Frontier of Writing

This poem is concerned with the act of being interrogated at a military checkpoint between Northern Ireland and The Republic and this is used as an analogy for the poet facing public appraisal or criticism of his work, hence the title.

The poem is written in terza rima stanzas and is divided into two equal halves. The intimidating imagery of military scrutiny, however, is common to both.

The opening lines have a sense of immediacy and an atmosphere of helplessness and paralysis is created. The use of the present tense helps us visualise being in this situation as well as the use of the personal pronoun “you”.

The use of enjambment and lack of punctuation gives the first half of the poem a stifling feeling of being rushed through a process of inspection and “interrogation”. There is a confession of fear and an admission of weakness. There is “quiver in the self”, he feels “subjugated” and “obedient”.

The second half of the poem deals with the poet being scrutinised as a writer and the same military imagery of interrogation is used. In his choice of profession, Heaney has subjugated himself to the criticism or appraisal of both a public and academic audience. The anticipation of how his work will be received is likened to being put on trial. There is a distinct feeling of pressure:

::::The guns on tripods;:The sergeant with his on-off mike repeating

:data about you, waiting for the squawk :of clearance

The poem ends with the same sense of liberation as leaving the border crossing. The poet is now free and unstifled as he leaves the military behind. They fade in to the distance, becoming smaller and smaller as he metaphorically drives away:

:The posted soldiers flowing and receding :Like tree shadows into the polished windscreen

;Terminus

This poem deals with Heaney’s sense of cultural dislocation and exile. He struggles to come to terms with his personal conflict and feelings of guilt about being brought up in Ireland then leaving for an academic career in England.

The many divisions, contrasts and dualities within in the poem serve as metaphors for Heaney’s feelings. There seems to be a balancing act in each couplet e.g. in the first part of the poem there are many contrasts between nature and industry:

“An acorn and a rusted bolt”

“a factory chimney / And a dormant mountain”

“an engine shunting / And a trotting horse” .

The second part of the poem continues to use contrasts but here prudence (cautiousness) is set against the worship of “mammon” (material possessions). This deals with the poet’s feelings of guilt about his own success. Notice the way he describes Heaney comes to the conclusion that “Two buckets were easier carried than one”. This is used as an analogy for the way he has lived straddled in between two cultures (England and Ireland) as well as his ambivalence towards the Catholic-Protestant feuding.

Education and literary success may have set Heaney in to exile, distancing him from his roots but they have also ennobled him and kept him in “earshot” of his peers, he still has a link with rural Ireland, albeit a distant one.

Heaney ends the poem comparing his situation to that of Hugh O’Neill, the subject of Brian Friel’s play Making History. He is a man caught in “midstream”, a born Celt but an English fosterling, belonging neither to one world nor the other. There is a distinct suggestion that Heaney sees himself as something of an outsider.