Title: “There is no substitute for hard work.” – Thomas Edison

Title: “There is no substitute for hard work.”–

Thomas Edison

An analysis of “Digging"
    (an analysis essay of biographical criticism)

 by Inder Peng

Digging

English 1B (T TH 10.50 AM)

Oct. 24^th, 2006

Miss. B.

Digging’
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

— by Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney, the foremost Irish poet, was born on April 13, 1939, on a farm in Castledawson, County Derry, Northern Ireland, the eldest of nine children, and had been expected to follow in his father’s footsteps, becoming a farmer and cattle dealer. When he was still quite young, however, it was recognized that this was unlikely to happen. At the age of twelve, after attending the local primary school, Seamus Heaney won a scholarship to St. Columb’s College, a Catholic boarding school situated in the city of Derry, forty miles away from the home farm. In 1953 his family left the farm, and even though his life since then has been a series of moves farther and farther away from Derry, the departures have been more geographical than psychological. His birthplace is always  “country of the mind” where much of Heaney’s poetry is still rooted. (Nobelprize.org, 1995   )

As one of the most popular poets writing in English today, his works have spanned the years beginning in 1965 with his first book, Death of a Naturalist, which received high praise from literary the world. Since then he has published over 20 books of poetry, criticisms, translations, and plays.  In 1995, Heaney even won the Nobel Prize in literature for his works .What he is best known for is his poetry, consisting of themes extending from his childhood in Northern Ireland. One of Heaney’s most famous poems is “Digging.” The short lyric associates with his imagination.( Nobelprize.org, 1995   )

Digging is a poem about a young man, Seamus Heaney- himself, who reflects on his families early farm life. It shows how the young Heaney admires his ancestors- in this case, his father and his grandfather. By personally reading “Digging” many times, the poem unfolded into a much deeper meaning behind the simplistic words than I had originally thought. The main objective was not only to show relationships between a father and a son, but to show a struggle of seeking his own art through hard digging.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds(1-7)

While the young poet is writing his poem, he sees his father (old now) digging into a flowerbed in his garden. Even though the father is elderly, he is still digging into the garden with his “straining rump among the flowerbeds”(6), regardless of the fact that the condition of the ground is bad, all covered with “gravelly”(4) stones. The writing, as the poet implies, is the act of digging, the act of creating flowerbeds in minds. The “squat pen”(2)which  perfectly fits his hand acts as his digging tool, even more powerful than his father’s spade, it is like a “gun”. After all the poem goes beyond the old saw that “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Tending a garden and holding a pen are two symbols of civilization which are doing the same things–digging. While his father is tending the garden, Heaney is digging in his head for ideas. In order to have beautiful flower gardens in fields and in writing, they are both digging with sweat on their brows.. Whoever works the hardest are the successful people. Even as talented as Seamus Heaney is, he still needs to work hard to achieve his goal.

Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands. (7-14)

Moreover, the sound from Heaney’s poem demonstrates the same elements of the main theme which mirrors the earnest actions of his father. Heaney’s poems include some stunning imagery and blazing emotion. The readers almost can see his father digging in front of them. However, there are also other levels of meaning surrounding this image. The truth was that his father’s main job was a cattle dealer and his father was very “congenial” about this job, even though he owned some land in Country Derry. He actually occasionally did his farming. (Nobelprize.org, 1995) Also in the poem Heaney points out that all the hard work has come along “twenty years away.”(7) Notice that Heaney published this poem in his late twenties, which might indicate that he was trying to emphasize how early and how hard he started his art. When the physical and mental labor of “digging” bring its joyful harvest, it is lovely.

By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging.

Additionally, Heaney cleverly presents the view that his grandfather is digging turf, for which he is famous as the best digger on the peat bog. Heaney strongly stresses his grandfather’s digging: he is completely preoccupied with his work and after drinking milk he directly goes back to work and does not have time to care about anything even his own food. All in all, respect and admiration are shown in the poem. In spite of that, strictly speaking, Heaney is not talking about his grandfather because his grandfather died when his father was very little.( Nobelprize.org, 1995) The denotation is the legacy of hard work close to the soil; the connotation is the legacy about his writing. The scene that he creates is so smooth that the readers hardly notice the connection between the grandfather’s spading and his own digging.

In this poem, his grandfather is capable of reaping the deep bounty on the peat bogs which would be used as fuel in the winter. Turf, known also as peat, is partially decomposed vegetable matter, an early form of coal. Peat has been used as a fuel in Ireland for over 1000 years. Each household would have their strip of bog. In its dehydrated form, peat is a highly effective absorbent for fuel and oil spills on land and water. Peat bog took 10,000 years to create.( Irish Cultural Society, 1987 ) It is extremely clear and direct that Heaney’s comment about peat is more than poetic metaphor; the peat bog is the implied metaphor which is likened to a database of  knowledge and information, and one must go deep in order to uncover the treasure of that bank. Though absorbing as much input as he can from his learning background, again, Heaney’s abilities are liken to the peat bog that must be reconstructed and shaped into something useful. Heaney has to really work hard to tear into the tough unforgiving ground, grasp the treasure of knowledge and information and rebuild them.

On close inspection, I suggest that his father’s old man is an elderly farmer from his motherland. He adopts the image and presents in his poem just because he wants to show how much labor he devotes to his proficiency. His dream career is a writer, not a farmer. No wonder he claims that he does not have any spade and doesn’t want to choose to be a digger.(28) There is also the other possibility that the old man is actually William Butler Yeats who was the greatest Irish poet before 1939. Yeats received the Nobel Prize in literature for his “dramatic works”. (Nobelprize.org,1923) He, much the same as Heaney, was interested in folktales and liked to communicate with death. He died before Heaney was born just like Heaney’s grandfather. The way Yeats’ devotion to writing is the same image as Heaney’s  grandfather’s devotion to digging: the object of perfection in Heaney’s mind.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
By looking much deeper and farther to search for his true explication, one can find being a writer is difficult, even for one as gifted as Heaney. In his poem, being a bog digger is tough, dirty and irritating, not to mention the smell of soggy peat. Sometimes it is also scary and precarious, because the bog men are buried inside the bog peat.  By digging seriously, Heaney vigorously tries to pursue his active writing level. His achievements are about empowering, improving and continually practicing at his writing skills and strength. Obviously he does not take them for granted.

In spite of Heaney’s remarkable success in literature, people always liked to compare Heaney with Yeats.( Art and culture) Some critics even claimed that Heaney was haunted by Yeats or that Heaney was Yeats’ duplicate. As a young writer, Heaney strongly defended himself by giving a firm statement that he had no intention of following “men like them.”(28) (Yeats and other famous Irish writers) It seems that Heaney sturdily guarded his own unique identity in public. Once again, in his poem, he declares that he will continue to reinforce his writing abilities. He uses “squat pen” (29) instead of “long pen” to show how much effort he is going to invest. No matter how many long pens become “squat” pens, he will be persistently digging.

True, Digging is a poem which shows the warm relationships between a young writer and his ancestors which remind readers to cherish the moments. Even more true,

Digging is also a poem in which the writer loudly and clearly proclaims “there is no substitute for hard work” and with his challenges and triumphs, Heaney is Heaney, unique and special.

Work Cited

1. Art and Culture. “Seamus Heaney” Art and Culture 10/20,2006 <http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ACLive.woa/wa/artist?id=1402&gt;
2. Irish Cultural Society. “Turf” 1987. Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area10/20,2006 <http://www.irish-society.org/Hedgemaster%20Archives/turf.htm>
3. Seamus Heaney. “Digging” Literature an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama- ninth edition. Kennedy, X. J., and Gioia, Dana. Pearson Longman, 2005. pp1186.
4. The Nobel Foundation. “Seamus Heaney” 1995. The Nobel Foundation 10/20,2006 <http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-bio.html&gt;

1. The Nobel Foundation. “William Butler Yeats”1923. The Nobel Foundation 10/20,2006.< http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bio.html>