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22 | Peter Dolmänyos
palpable influence of that specific cultural matrix which characterises North¬
ern Ireland. While Montague is of an earlier generation, his inclusion with
the later triad of Heaney, Longley and Mahon is justified by his claim for the
position of the "missing link in Ulster poetry"" as well as by his seminal col¬
lection addressing the situation of Northern Ireland, The Rough Field (1972),
which was labelled as “[t]he single finest collection of Irish poetry since Yeats’s
The Tower”,”’ centred around fundamental changes that Montague observed
in connection with his native province in the course of a period of increas¬
ing and intensifying civil unrest. The experience of the massive changes that
eventually led to the eruption of the Troubles was a direct one for Heaney,
Longley and Mahon in their formative years as emerging poets.” They share
the exposure to those profound changes that compelled them to address the
experience of that complex matrix that Northern Ireland represented from
the 1960s onwards.
The complex background of John Montague (1929-2016) forms a challeng¬
ing set of influences and conditions. As the poet claimed, his heritage of di¬
verse elements would pose a major challenge for defining an accessible iden¬
tity: “Brooklyn-born, Tyrone-reared, Dublin-educated, constituted a tangle, a
turmoil of contradictory allegiance it would take a lifetime to unravel”.” His
Catholic family background with the figure of the Republican father choosing
exile in the wake of partition renders him a representative of a particular seg¬
ment of the Northern population, yet his later travels and broad international
experience provide an active counterpoint to his local roots in County Tyrone,
which eventually informs his approach to place as well. His reading of the
landscape of his native province as a repository of history suggests the influ¬
ence of the tradition of dinnséanchas as a subtext of solid cultural foundation
and thus some form of permanence, yet the acknowledgement of change as
an inevitable part of history adds a dynamic balancing element to his under¬
standing of place as the position and attitude of the observer become actively
involved in the construction of the meaning of place. His inclusion of elements
of the pastoral tradition yields a similar result as the observing intelligence
discovers and faces the limitations of the tradition for the representation of
place in that particular context which he targets. A fundamental dimension
of Montague’s poetry is the registering of change in connection with place,
prompting him to favour the elegiac as a mode in his contemplation of the
temporal constituent of locations, and his preference for short lines creates a
sense of tension as a result of the narrow space the form allows for.
The position of Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) as the leading voice of his gen¬
eration is well-documented. His Catholic background in a small local farm
renders him as a representative of the minority in Northern Ireland, but as a
70
Montague, The Figure in the Cave, 9
Rory Brennan, “Contemporary Irish Poetry: an Overview.” In: Michael Kenneally (ed.), Poetry in
Contemporary Irish Literature (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe Limited, 1995), 3
cf. Heaney, “Place and Displacement”, 162
Montague, The Figure in the Cave, 8
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