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Seamus Heaneys Senseof Place ] 39
attempt of lending a specifically northern mythic framework to his explora¬
tion of his conflict-ridden contemporary world of Northern Ireland, but the
opening of the poem marks a location in which the speaker positions himself
for his proposed evocation of the Viking world. While the presented details of
that location are so generic as to question the actual position of the speaker,
the bared down physicality of the place suggests its reality as the spatial
frame for the experience of the speaker. The imaginative appeal of the coastal
place is rejected at first as the speaker admits that on his return he “found
only the secular / powers of the Atlantic thundering”*’, and the more distant
locations associated with the Vikings do not appear inspiring either as “the
unmagical / invitations of Iceland”*? and the “pathetic colonies / of Green¬
land"? indicate a similar picture to the one that opens the poem, of places
recalled in their pure physical geographical conditions uncoloured by cultural
conceptions. This suggests the dominance of lived experience for approaching
the concept of place, yet the underlying intention of conjuring the vision of
“those fabulous raiders”** eventually promotes the appeal of the literate and
conscious element for appreciating the place as the “epiphany”* unfolds. The
vision, however, retains the sombre nature that its place of evocation shows,
which suggests a close relation between the location and the vision as the one
apparently affects the other. This provides an intriguing aspect of Heaney’s
sense of place since the poem does not make the direction of that influence
clear, though the word “hindsight” used in connection with the assessment of
the Viking world suggests the primacy of the place as the determining factor
in this context.
The shore recovers its own appeal as location per se in the poem “Post¬
script”, the closing piece of The Spirit Level. Similarly to “The Peninsula”, this
poem also suggests a drive to a coastal area, yet the conditions required for
it are markedly different. Whereas in the earlier poem the location was only
termed “the peninsula” and the duration of the visit was specified, in “Post¬
script” there is a sufficiently precise delineation of the destination and a like¬
wise definite temporal dimension with some specific weather conditions that
are seen as the proper setting in which the anticipated experience can unfold.
There is also a shift in perspective as the normal border-like position of the
shore is changed, the land is placed between the ocean and a lake with the
spectator caught between the two water bodies in his position of observation.
The two water bodies, however, represent two distinct worlds: “the ocean on
one side is wild / With foam and glitter”,*° an apparently hostile environ¬
ment devoid of any sign of life, whereas the surface of the lake “is lit / By the
31 Seamus Heaney, North (London: Faber, 1975), 10
32. Heaney, North, 10
33 Heaney, North, 10
34 Heaney, North, 10
35 Heaney, North, 10
36 Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level (London: Faber, 1996), 70