Representation in modern Irish poetry

Eamonn Hughes

pp. 78-94

in: Michael B. Allen (ed), Seamus Heaney, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1997

Abstract

The introduction to The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry claims "to extend the imaginative franchise".¹ The anthology functions as a Representation of the Poet's Act, suggesting that somewhere, a poetic equivalent of Westminster, there are those who hold the power to extend the franchise. Seamus Heaney's response to the anthology, An Open Letter, is at root a declaration of independence, an expressed desire not to be represented at a poetic Westminster. But there are problems with this declaration of independence. Seamus Deane has spoken of how Heaney caresses the intimacies of the Anglo-Irish connection and we live in a world of interdependencies in which such intimacies cannot simply be rejected, constituting as they do our reality. Rejecting them does not return us to a pristine origin; it leaves us instead in a void. The usual questions which arise from such considerations are about how the Irish are (mis)represented. Instead, I want to consider how certain Irish writers represent other cultures, particularly England's.

Cited authors

Heaney Seamus

Deane Seamus