Oldal 45 [45]
OCR
Seamus Heaneys Sense of Place | 43 understanding of places appears akin to Derek Mahon’s idea of the “intrinsic nature” of any location that insists on the particularity of any place in its own context and for its own essence, on its own right.“ According to Heaney the two ways of knowing a place, the lived and the learned, have a dynamic relationship, challenging and in turn reinforcing each other.° While several of his representations of places are rooted in the first, lived type of knowledge, their inscription into the poems alters the status of these locations for reception: in the wake of Heaney’s own poetic oeuvre several of his depicted locations become encrypted into the tradition and thus promote the second, learned way of approaching place. This suggests that in his poetic practice the relationship between the two ways is complementary rather than antipathetic, although in the case of approaching certain locations such as the bay in “North” there is a tangible sense of the presence of tension between what is expected and what is eventually experienced. Such instances also imply the preconditioning potential of initial expectations brought to the act of observation, which ultimately constrains the speaker’s openness to receive the experience in his own personal situation and at the same time indicates the presence and influence of broader cultural contexts in which that personal situation is always embedded. This at once points to the subtle relationship between Heaney’s critical perspective reflected in the essay and his own poetic practice, indicating not only how Heaney’s own writing affects his reading of others but also the influence his reading has on his own conception of approaching place. His poetic practice eventually brings the two ways of knowing a place together into one complex by fusing the speaker’s often unconscious and lived experience of the place with the consequent conscious and learned experience of it for the audience, thus his places are inscribed into the tradition and reshape it in turn. The result is a dynamic matrix, a constant resituating of the poles of the lived and of the learned, for him as well as for the audience, which ultimately keeps Heaney’s sense of place as vibrant and cherishable as the places themselves. 19 Derek Mahon, The Poems (1961-2020). ed. Peter Fallon. (Loughcrew: Gallery Press, 2021), 128 50 Heaney, Preoccupations, 131
