Seamus Heaney

[updown9194]

In paraphrase?

McLiam Wilson, Robert, ''The Glittering Prize' , in Fortnight Review, 344 (Nov. 1995), pp.23-24

P.S. Edna Longley suggests that he has an 'ultimate fidelity to the ambiguity of opposing demands' in 'Heaney and Homecoming', in Richard Kearney, ed., Transitions: Narratives in Modern Irish Culture (Dublin: Wolfhound 1988), pp.101-22

Um, could we at least have a look at what was actually said? Y'now, just in case of the ambiguity of opposing viewpoints.

I don't possess either that particular issue of fortnight or the Richard Kearney tome, but here's a fairly succinct description of Shague Ghintoss, the parody of Heaney in Eureka Street:

Shague Ghintoss, the poet, had been awarded a knighthood and the Just Us party's very
first Hero of the Revolution Award. This unfortunate conjunction had caused him some unease until
a fresh-faced young hack had asked him whether he was going to accept both awards as some kind of pan-ecumenical gesture, an attempt to build bridges between the divided traditions. Ghintoss's eyes had gleamed suddenly. 'Yes,' he had said. 'Funny you should mention it.'

'Just Us' is McLiam Wilson's ironic translation of Sinn Féin.

[Main Street]

I think having read what Heaney said quite a few times it can be taken literally as Unionist (like that font of cultural expression Nelson) or it can be later construed should he wish to be merely an expression of PUL thinking. If it is the former i would expect clarification, if not silence.

Its not unlike the time in June 2008, after the IFA objected to Nordies declaring for the FAI, FIFA came out with a rewording of the Eligibility Rules for clarification purposes, the IFA and the Belfast Telegraph were creaming themselves, celebrating a great victory.
It took another 3 years for the penny to drop with the IFA.

In fairness English wouldn't be their first language.

If only it was a language issue 

[updown9194]

The last bit about united ireland  etc, has more than a hint of being mischievous.

Maybe so, but one thing that I perhaps forgot to mention was that the entire thing read like a complete ramble. It's quite a statement to end a paragraph on and a bit of a non-sequitur if you ask me.

[muppet]

In paraphrase?

McLiam Wilson, Robert, ''The Glittering Prize' , in Fortnight Review, 344 (Nov. 1995), pp.23-24

P.S. Edna Longley suggests that he has an 'ultimate fidelity to the ambiguity of opposing demands' in 'Heaney and Homecoming', in Richard Kearney, ed., Transitions: Narratives in Modern Irish Culture (Dublin: Wolfhound 1988), pp.101-22

Um, could we at least have a look at what was actually said? Y'now, just in case of the ambiguity of opposing viewpoints.

I don't possess either that particular issue of fortnight or the Richard Kearney tome, but here's a fairly succinct description of Shague Ghintoss, the parody of Heaney in Eureka Street:

Shague Ghintoss, the poet, had been awarded a knighthood and the Just Us party's very
first Hero of the Revolution Award. This unfortunate conjunction had caused him some unease until
a fresh-faced young hack had asked him whether he was going to accept both awards as some kind of pan-ecumenical gesture, an attempt to build bridges between the divided traditions. Ghintoss's eyes had gleamed suddenly. 'Yes,' he had said. 'Funny you should mention it.'

'Just Us' is McLiam Wilson's ironic translation of Sinn Féin.

That is funny. I never knew there was West Belfast satire on the troubles!

I suppose you could prove Elvis never touched drugs in this way also.

[updown9194]

In paraphrase?

McLiam Wilson, Robert, ''The Glittering Prize' , in Fortnight Review, 344 (Nov. 1995), pp.23-24

P.S. Edna Longley suggests that he has an 'ultimate fidelity to the ambiguity of opposing demands' in 'Heaney and Homecoming', in Richard Kearney, ed., Transitions: Narratives in Modern Irish Culture (Dublin: Wolfhound 1988), pp.101-22

Um, could we at least have a look at what was actually said? Y'now, just in case of the ambiguity of opposing viewpoints.

I don't possess either that particular issue of fortnight or the Richard Kearney tome, but here's a fairly succinct description of Shague Ghintoss, the parody of Heaney in Eureka Street:

Shague Ghintoss, the poet, had been awarded a knighthood and the Just Us party's very
first Hero of the Revolution Award. This unfortunate conjunction had caused him some unease until
a fresh-faced young hack had asked him whether he was going to accept both awards as some kind of pan-ecumenical gesture, an attempt to build bridges between the divided traditions. Ghintoss's eyes had gleamed suddenly. 'Yes,' he had said. 'Funny you should mention it.'

'Just Us' is McLiam Wilson's ironic translation of Sinn Féin.

That is funny. I never knew there was West Belfast satire on the troubles!

I suppose you could prove Elvis never touched drugs in this way also.

Christ, I give up. If you are really interested then you can hunt down the issue of Fortnight on JSTOR by way of a subscription: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25558636?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dthe%2Bglittering%2Bprize%26fromHomePage%3Dtrue%26acc%3Doff%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&Search=yes&uid=3738032&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101612793831

Or if you wish to examine criticism about Heaney's portrayal of violence: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2Ni95u7F02EC&pg=PA281&dq=ciaran+carson+seamus+heaney+punishment+political&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1twKUbGHEoOd0AX5hIDoCQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ciaran%20carson%20seamus%20heaney%20punishment%20political&f=false

EDIT: you should particularly note where that chapter says that 'The evidence [regarding whether the political opinion of his poetry is ventriloquised or his own] from the rest of Heaney's work is ambiguous.'

An academic discussion of Heaney's 'pluralist' (read: ambiguous) sense of Irishness:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=awFM5Z1f32wC&pg=PA33&dq=heaney+politics&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H90KUbaoC8nE0QWvrYHoBQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=heaney%20politics&f=false

[Oraisteach]

Muppet, if you want biting satire, have a go at Chapter 11 of Wilson's "Eureka Street".  It's phenomenal.

[updown9194]

Muppet, if you want biting satire, have a go at Chapter 11 of Wilson's "Eureka Street".  It's phenomenal.

Shame about the rest of the book, unfortunately.

[muppet]

In paraphrase?

McLiam Wilson, Robert, ''The Glittering Prize' , in Fortnight Review, 344 (Nov. 1995), pp.23-24

P.S. Edna Longley suggests that he has an 'ultimate fidelity to the ambiguity of opposing demands' in 'Heaney and Homecoming', in Richard Kearney, ed., Transitions: Narratives in Modern Irish Culture (Dublin: Wolfhound 1988), pp.101-22

Um, could we at least have a look at what was actually said? Y'now, just in case of the ambiguity of opposing viewpoints.

I don't possess either that particular issue of fortnight or the Richard Kearney tome, but here's a fairly succinct description of Shague Ghintoss, the parody of Heaney in Eureka Street:

Shague Ghintoss, the poet, had been awarded a knighthood and the Just Us party's very
first Hero of the Revolution Award. This unfortunate conjunction had caused him some unease until
a fresh-faced young hack had asked him whether he was going to accept both awards as some kind of pan-ecumenical gesture, an attempt to build bridges between the divided traditions. Ghintoss's eyes had gleamed suddenly. 'Yes,' he had said. 'Funny you should mention it.'

'Just Us' is McLiam Wilson's ironic translation of Sinn Féin.

That is funny. I never knew there was West Belfast satire on the troubles!

I suppose you could prove Elvis never touched drugs in this way also.

Christ, I give up. If you are really interested then you can hunt down the issue of Fortnight on JSTOR by way of a subscription: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25558636?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dthe%2Bglittering%2Bprize%26fromHomePage%3Dtrue%26acc%3Doff%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&Search=yes&uid=3738032&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101612793831

Or if you wish to examine criticism about Heaney's portrayal of violence: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2Ni95u7F02EC&pg=PA281&dq=ciaran+carson+seamus+heaney+punishment+political&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1twKUbGHEoOd0AX5hIDoCQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ciaran%20carson%20seamus%20heaney%20punishment%20political&f=false

EDIT: you should particularly note where that chapter says that 'The evidence [regarding whether the political opinion of his poetry is ventriloquised or his own] from the rest of Heaney's work is ambiguous.'

An academic discussion of Heaney's 'pluralist' (read: ambiguous) sense of Irishness:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=awFM5Z1f32wC&pg=PA33&dq=heaney+politics&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H90KUbaoC8nE0QWvrYHoBQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=heaney%20politics&f=false

Thanks for the links. They reminded me of how I thought poetry was a particularly vicious type of torture for kids who wanted to do well at school. Everyone had an opinion and every opinion had some level of validity no matter how daft. I couldn't make sense of it then and can't now.

For example your link on his portrayal of violence has, on the one hand, Conor Cruise O'Brien praising Heaney and on the other someone called Carson accusing him of having deteriorated as a poet and 'using his gifts to aesthesticize violence'. I'd say he isn't a fan of Tarantino. It doesn't say he makes shit up in interviews, as you are suggesting.

Nothing I've seen there, regarding Heaney's poetry (the first i've read of it was posted by O'Neill earlier in the thread), removes his right to have an opinion on life in Northern Ireland. Nothing I've seen there proves that everything he says lies or sneaky.

[muppet]

Muppet, if you want biting satire, have a go at Chapter 11 of Wilson's "Eureka Street".  It's phenomenal.

Cheers, I'll go look for it.

[updown9194]

In paraphrase?

McLiam Wilson, Robert, ''The Glittering Prize' , in Fortnight Review, 344 (Nov. 1995), pp.23-24

P.S. Edna Longley suggests that he has an 'ultimate fidelity to the ambiguity of opposing demands' in 'Heaney and Homecoming', in Richard Kearney, ed., Transitions: Narratives in Modern Irish Culture (Dublin: Wolfhound 1988), pp.101-22

Um, could we at least have a look at what was actually said? Y'now, just in case of the ambiguity of opposing viewpoints.

I don't possess either that particular issue of fortnight or the Richard Kearney tome, but here's a fairly succinct description of Shague Ghintoss, the parody of Heaney in Eureka Street:

Shague Ghintoss, the poet, had been awarded a knighthood and the Just Us party's very
first Hero of the Revolution Award. This unfortunate conjunction had caused him some unease until
a fresh-faced young hack had asked him whether he was going to accept both awards as some kind of pan-ecumenical gesture, an attempt to build bridges between the divided traditions. Ghintoss's eyes had gleamed suddenly. 'Yes,' he had said. 'Funny you should mention it.'

'Just Us' is McLiam Wilson's ironic translation of Sinn Féin.

That is funny. I never knew there was West Belfast satire on the troubles!

I suppose you could prove Elvis never touched drugs in this way also.

Christ, I give up. If you are really interested then you can hunt down the issue of Fortnight on JSTOR by way of a subscription: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25558636?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dthe%2Bglittering%2Bprize%26fromHomePage%3Dtrue%26acc%3Doff%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&Search=yes&uid=3738032&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101612793831

Or if you wish to examine criticism about Heaney's portrayal of violence: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2Ni95u7F02EC&pg=PA281&dq=ciaran+carson+seamus+heaney+punishment+political&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1twKUbGHEoOd0AX5hIDoCQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=ciaran%20carson%20seamus%20heaney%20punishment%20political&f=false

EDIT: you should particularly note where that chapter says that 'The evidence [regarding whether the political opinion of his poetry is ventriloquised or his own] from the rest of Heaney's work is ambiguous.'

An academic discussion of Heaney's 'pluralist' (read: ambiguous) sense of Irishness:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=awFM5Z1f32wC&pg=PA33&dq=heaney+politics&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H90KUbaoC8nE0QWvrYHoBQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=heaney%20politics&f=false

Thanks for the links. They reminded me of how I thought poetry was a particularly vicious type of torture for kids who wanted to do well at school. Everyone had an opinion and every opinion had some level of validity no matter how daft. I couldn't make sense of it then and can't now.

For example your link on his portrayal of violence has, on the one hand, Conor Cruise O'Brien praising Heaney and on the other someone called Carson accusing him of having deteriorated as a poet and 'using his gifts to aesthesticize violence'. I'd say he isn't a fan of Tarantino. It doesn't say he makes shit up in interviews, as you are suggesting.

Nothing I've seen there, regarding Heaney's poetry (the first i've read of it was posted by O'Neill earlier in the thread), removes his right to have an opinion on life in Northern Ireland. Nothing I've seen there proves that everything he says lies or sneaky.

I didn't suggest that he 'makes shit up' in interviews. I suggested that he is and has been happy to contradict himself on a number of occasions, which I think is sneaky in the 'furtive'  or 'mischievous' sense. That sneakiness, ostensibly, is sometimes considered what being a poet is about, and the fostering of a public persona is intrinsic to most writer's works. I mean, here is a poet - chief of the idealists, chief of the formalists - asking for reason and pragmatism. By way of example, Yeats, too, was a phenomenal poet and an awful politician. His beliefs regarding race, fascism and eugenics among others would astound you in equal measure to his brilliance as a writer. But as he himself said, 'Even when the poet seems most himself ... he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.' Also, reappropriating a poem - even if you have written it - for a political purpose changes its original meaning, since context is the key to its unlocking.

Heaney's 'Punishment' is a great example of this, since there's a bit at the end where the voice of the poem 'understands the exact / and tribal, intimate revenge' of a Derry/Belfast woman being tarred and feathered by her own community for fraternising with British Soliders, all the while being crudely compared to ancient rites of violence. There is, admittedly, a bit more to it than that, but do those last lines mean that Heaney sympathises with that kind of act, that he sees it as natural? In this regard, I don't think O'Brien was praising Heaney [in his criticism for this poem and others in North] but I see it more as an attack upon him from both flanks by Carson and him. This excerpt from the Cambridge Companion to Heaney sums up O'Brien's position nicely: 'Heaney, according to O'Brien, has used his exceptional capacity for exact description of 'the thing itself' to evoke in an unbalanced way the suffering of the Catholics of Northern Ireland: 'there is no equivalent Protestant voice'. In each case the poet is being accused of using fraught public events to serve a personal cause.' These 'fraught public events' are the 'grim currency' I referred to earlier; the defence of this poem is of course that this poetic voice is not an endorsement but an artistic venture which does not openly moralise.

Whether these particular remarks are mischievous or a personal cause or not, at no point did I suggest that Heaney didn't have a right to his opinion - his opinions just don't cohere, since a poet is often forced to take on a number of different personae in search of a putatively greater truth. Reading his Nobel acceptance speech in comparison to his comments last week reveal a world of differences. And I would say that I don't believe that an artist's work should disbar him from political views and the right to express them; I do think that an artist should be mindful of the fact that he/she has been given a platform on something other than these political views. That isn't to say that art can ever be separate from politics or history, nor vice versa - it's just that poets, novelists, painters, musicians should not consider themselves what Shelley called the 'unacknowledged legislators of the world' because they, and especially poets, lead lives of imagination rather than practicality. They generally adopt poses and personae rather than solid political stances and convictions; that is why they are good poets rather than good career politicians.

[muppet]

I didn't suggest that he 'makes shit up' in interviews. I suggested that he is and has been happy to contradict himself on a number of occasions, which I think is sneaky in the 'furtive'  or 'mischievous' sense. That sneakiness, ostensibly, is sometimes considered what being a poet is about, and the fostering of a public persona is intrinsic to most writer's works. I mean, here is a poet - chief of the idealists, chief of the formalists - asking for reason and pragmatism. By way of example, Yeats, too, was a phenomenal poet and an awful politician. His beliefs regarding race, fascism and eugenics among others would astound you in equal measure to his brilliance as a writer. But as he himself said, 'Even when the poet seems most himself ... he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.' Also, reappropriating a poem - even if you have written it - for a political purpose changes its original meaning, since context is the key to its unlocking.

Heaney's 'Punishment' is a great example of this, since there's a bit at the end where the voice of the poem 'understands the exact / and tribal, intimate revenge' of a Derry/Belfast woman being tarred and feathered by her own community for fraternising with British Soliders, all the while being crudely compared to ancient rites of violence. There is, admittedly, a bit more to it than that, but do those last lines mean that Heaney sympathises with that kind of act, that he sees it as natural? In this regard, I don't think O'Brien was praising Heaney [in his criticism for this poem and others in North] but I see it more as an attack upon him from both flanks by Carson and him. This excerpt from the Cambridge Companion to Heaney sums up O'Brien's position nicely: 'Heaney, according to O'Brien, has used his exceptional capacity for exact description of 'the thing itself' to evoke in an unbalanced way the suffering of the Catholics of Northern Ireland: 'there is no equivalent Protestant voice'. In each case the poet is being accused of using fraught public events to serve a personal cause.' These 'fraught public events' are the 'grim currency' I referred to earlier; the defence of this poem is of course that this poetic voice is not an endorsement but an artistic venture which does not openly moralise.

Whether these particular remarks are mischievous or a personal cause or not, at no point did I suggest that Heaney didn't have a right to his opinion - his opinions just don't cohere, since a poet is often forced to take on a number of different personae in search of a putatively greater truth. Reading his Nobel acceptance speech in comparison to his comments last week reveal a world of differences. And I would say that I don't believe that an artist's work should disbar him from political views and the right to express them; I do think that an artist should be mindful of the fact that he/she has been given a platform on something other than these political views. That isn't to say that art can ever be separate from politics or history, nor vice versa - it's just that poets, novelists, painters, musicians should not consider themselves what Shelley called the 'unacknowledged legislators of the world' because they, and especially poets, lead lives of imagination rather than practicality. They generally adopt poses and personae rather than solid political stances and convictions; that is why they are good poets rather than good career politicians.

You have the gift of using 100 words where 1 might do.

This is what you said:

Whatever he has said in this instance, I don't trust his viewpoint on anything else other than literature and history.

The reason I picked up on this is because I have noticed it is a standard reaction of the long term republicans on here. That may or may not include you, that of course is your business. But the reaction is typical: announce that the source of the discourse that doesn't fit into republican mantra has been discredited, somewhere, anywhere. Witness Nally Stand's claim that the SDLP were created by the NIO on another thread.

To a certain part of his own community, Heaney's opinion can be lightly dismissed (very few would find it 'untrustworthy'), to the rest of the world it would be held in very high regard.

[Nally Stand]

I didn't suggest that he 'makes shit up' in interviews. I suggested that he is and has been happy to contradict himself on a number of occasions, which I think is sneaky in the 'furtive'  or 'mischievous' sense. That sneakiness, ostensibly, is sometimes considered what being a poet is about, and the fostering of a public persona is intrinsic to most writer's works. I mean, here is a poet - chief of the idealists, chief of the formalists - asking for reason and pragmatism. By way of example, Yeats, too, was a phenomenal poet and an awful politician. His beliefs regarding race, fascism and eugenics among others would astound you in equal measure to his brilliance as a writer. But as he himself said, 'Even when the poet seems most himself ... he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.' Also, reappropriating a poem - even if you have written it - for a political purpose changes its original meaning, since context is the key to its unlocking.

Heaney's 'Punishment' is a great example of this, since there's a bit at the end where the voice of the poem 'understands the exact / and tribal, intimate revenge' of a Derry/Belfast woman being tarred and feathered by her own community for fraternising with British Soliders, all the while being crudely compared to ancient rites of violence. There is, admittedly, a bit more to it than that, but do those last lines mean that Heaney sympathises with that kind of act, that he sees it as natural? In this regard, I don't think O'Brien was praising Heaney [in his criticism for this poem and others in North] but I see it more as an attack upon him from both flanks by Carson and him. This excerpt from the Cambridge Companion to Heaney sums up O'Brien's position nicely: 'Heaney, according to O'Brien, has used his exceptional capacity for exact description of 'the thing itself' to evoke in an unbalanced way the suffering of the Catholics of Northern Ireland: 'there is no equivalent Protestant voice'. In each case the poet is being accused of using fraught public events to serve a personal cause.' These 'fraught public events' are the 'grim currency' I referred to earlier; the defence of this poem is of course that this poetic voice is not an endorsement but an artistic venture which does not openly moralise.

Whether these particular remarks are mischievous or a personal cause or not, at no point did I suggest that Heaney didn't have a right to his opinion - his opinions just don't cohere, since a poet is often forced to take on a number of different personae in search of a putatively greater truth. Reading his Nobel acceptance speech in comparison to his comments last week reveal a world of differences. And I would say that I don't believe that an artist's work should disbar him from political views and the right to express them; I do think that an artist should be mindful of the fact that he/she has been given a platform on something other than these political views. That isn't to say that art can ever be separate from politics or history, nor vice versa - it's just that poets, novelists, painters, musicians should not consider themselves what Shelley called the 'unacknowledged legislators of the world' because they, and especially poets, lead lives of imagination rather than practicality. They generally adopt poses and personae rather than solid political stances and convictions; that is why they are good poets rather than good career politicians.

You have the gift of using 100 words where 1 might do.

This is what you said:

Whatever he has said in this instance, I don't trust his viewpoint on anything else other than literature and history.

The reason I picked up on this is because I have noticed it is a standard reaction of the long term republicans on here. That may or may not include you, that of course is your business. But the reaction is typical: announce that the source of the discourse that doesn't fit into republican mantra has been discredited, somewhere, anywhere. Witness Nally Stand's claim the NIO's claim that the SDLP were created by the NIO on another thread.

To a certain part of his own community, Heaney's opinion can be lightly dismissed (very few would find it 'untrustworthy'), to the rest of the world it would be held in very high regard.

Fixed that for you. Kindly get over yourself.

[muppet]

I didn't suggest that he 'makes shit up' in interviews. I suggested that he is and has been happy to contradict himself on a number of occasions, which I think is sneaky in the 'furtive'  or 'mischievous' sense. That sneakiness, ostensibly, is sometimes considered what being a poet is about, and the fostering of a public persona is intrinsic to most writer's works. I mean, here is a poet - chief of the idealists, chief of the formalists - asking for reason and pragmatism. By way of example, Yeats, too, was a phenomenal poet and an awful politician. His beliefs regarding race, fascism and eugenics among others would astound you in equal measure to his brilliance as a writer. But as he himself said, 'Even when the poet seems most himself ... he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.' Also, reappropriating a poem - even if you have written it - for a political purpose changes its original meaning, since context is the key to its unlocking.

Heaney's 'Punishment' is a great example of this, since there's a bit at the end where the voice of the poem 'understands the exact / and tribal, intimate revenge' of a Derry/Belfast woman being tarred and feathered by her own community for fraternising with British Soliders, all the while being crudely compared to ancient rites of violence. There is, admittedly, a bit more to it than that, but do those last lines mean that Heaney sympathises with that kind of act, that he sees it as natural? In this regard, I don't think O'Brien was praising Heaney [in his criticism for this poem and others in North] but I see it more as an attack upon him from both flanks by Carson and him. This excerpt from the Cambridge Companion to Heaney sums up O'Brien's position nicely: 'Heaney, according to O'Brien, has used his exceptional capacity for exact description of 'the thing itself' to evoke in an unbalanced way the suffering of the Catholics of Northern Ireland: 'there is no equivalent Protestant voice'. In each case the poet is being accused of using fraught public events to serve a personal cause.' These 'fraught public events' are the 'grim currency' I referred to earlier; the defence of this poem is of course that this poetic voice is not an endorsement but an artistic venture which does not openly moralise.

Whether these particular remarks are mischievous or a personal cause or not, at no point did I suggest that Heaney didn't have a right to his opinion - his opinions just don't cohere, since a poet is often forced to take on a number of different personae in search of a putatively greater truth. Reading his Nobel acceptance speech in comparison to his comments last week reveal a world of differences. And I would say that I don't believe that an artist's work should disbar him from political views and the right to express them; I do think that an artist should be mindful of the fact that he/she has been given a platform on something other than these political views. That isn't to say that art can ever be separate from politics or history, nor vice versa - it's just that poets, novelists, painters, musicians should not consider themselves what Shelley called the 'unacknowledged legislators of the world' because they, and especially poets, lead lives of imagination rather than practicality. They generally adopt poses and personae rather than solid political stances and convictions; that is why they are good poets rather than good career politicians.

You have the gift of using 100 words where 1 might do.

This is what you said:

Whatever he has said in this instance, I don't trust his viewpoint on anything else other than literature and history.

The reason I picked up on this is because I have noticed it is a standard reaction of the long term republicans on here. That may or may not include you, that of course is your business. But the reaction is typical: announce that the source of the discourse that doesn't fit into republican mantra has been discredited, somewhere, anywhere. Witness Nally Stand's claim the NIO's claim that the SDLP were created by the NIO on another thread.

To a certain part of his own community, Heaney's opinion can be lightly dismissed (very few would find it 'untrustworthy'), to the rest of the world it would be held in very high regard.

Fixed that for you. Kindly get over yourself.

At the moment it is really your claim. You can take all the credit for it.

Post a link to where the NIO said it and that would change matters.

[Nally Stand]

I didn't suggest that he 'makes shit up' in interviews. I suggested that he is and has been happy to contradict himself on a number of occasions, which I think is sneaky in the 'furtive'  or 'mischievous' sense. That sneakiness, ostensibly, is sometimes considered what being a poet is about, and the fostering of a public persona is intrinsic to most writer's works. I mean, here is a poet - chief of the idealists, chief of the formalists - asking for reason and pragmatism. By way of example, Yeats, too, was a phenomenal poet and an awful politician. His beliefs regarding race, fascism and eugenics among others would astound you in equal measure to his brilliance as a writer. But as he himself said, 'Even when the poet seems most himself ... he is never the bundle of accident and incoherence that sits down to breakfast; he has been reborn as an idea, something intended, complete.' Also, reappropriating a poem - even if you have written it - for a political purpose changes its original meaning, since context is the key to its unlocking.

Heaney's 'Punishment' is a great example of this, since there's a bit at the end where the voice of the poem 'understands the exact / and tribal, intimate revenge' of a Derry/Belfast woman being tarred and feathered by her own community for fraternising with British Soliders, all the while being crudely compared to ancient rites of violence. There is, admittedly, a bit more to it than that, but do those last lines mean that Heaney sympathises with that kind of act, that he sees it as natural? In this regard, I don't think O'Brien was praising Heaney [in his criticism for this poem and others in North] but I see it more as an attack upon him from both flanks by Carson and him. This excerpt from the Cambridge Companion to Heaney sums up O'Brien's position nicely: 'Heaney, according to O'Brien, has used his exceptional capacity for exact description of 'the thing itself' to evoke in an unbalanced way the suffering of the Catholics of Northern Ireland: 'there is no equivalent Protestant voice'. In each case the poet is being accused of using fraught public events to serve a personal cause.' These 'fraught public events' are the 'grim currency' I referred to earlier; the defence of this poem is of course that this poetic voice is not an endorsement but an artistic venture which does not openly moralise.

Whether these particular remarks are mischievous or a personal cause or not, at no point did I suggest that Heaney didn't have a right to his opinion - his opinions just don't cohere, since a poet is often forced to take on a number of different personae in search of a putatively greater truth. Reading his Nobel acceptance speech in comparison to his comments last week reveal a world of differences. And I would say that I don't believe that an artist's work should disbar him from political views and the right to express them; I do think that an artist should be mindful of the fact that he/she has been given a platform on something other than these political views. That isn't to say that art can ever be separate from politics or history, nor vice versa - it's just that poets, novelists, painters, musicians should not consider themselves what Shelley called the 'unacknowledged legislators of the world' because they, and especially poets, lead lives of imagination rather than practicality. They generally adopt poses and personae rather than solid political stances and convictions; that is why they are good poets rather than good career politicians.

You have the gift of using 100 words where 1 might do.

This is what you said:

Whatever he has said in this instance, I don't trust his viewpoint on anything else other than literature and history.

The reason I picked up on this is because I have noticed it is a standard reaction of the long term republicans on here. That may or may not include you, that of course is your business. But the reaction is typical: announce that the source of the discourse that doesn't fit into republican mantra has been discredited, somewhere, anywhere. Witness Nally Stand's claim the NIO's claim that the SDLP were created by the NIO on another thread.

To a certain part of his own community, Heaney's opinion can be lightly dismissed (very few would find it 'untrustworthy'), to the rest of the world it would be held in very high regard.

Fixed that for you. Kindly get over yourself.

At the moment it is really your claim. You can take all the credit for it.

Post a link to where the NIO said it and that would change matters.

"Stage 2"

[muppet]

All we need is Lawnseed now to discuss his claim of Luftwaffe pilots: 'reminds me of documents found on german wwII pilots where they are given instruction on what to expect should they be shot down over ireland. they are told the the irish women are basically good but the men are the lowest scum on the planet and not to be trusted.

Put these 3 most recent threads together and now have quite an interesting group used to rule out any inconvenient Irish non-Republican thinking: The Northern Ireland Office, Conor 'Cruise' O'Brien and the Nazis.