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A year or so back I found myself, more by chance than anything, going through Larkin and Heaney at the same time—well, H.’s first four books plus his Beowulf translation— and found the experience of reading Larkin utterly dispiriting; that of reading Heaney, by contrast, I found (to my surprise, I admit) thoroughly absorbing and energizing.  There may be all sorts of reasons to dissent from Heaneyism, but any imagined similarity w/ Larkin makes little sense.

As for ‘Fosterage’, I’m struck by the negative aside about Hopkins (put into the voice of H.’s mentor).  How do you read that, Jamie?  

fwiw,

Jeremy




On Sep 14, 2017, at 9:52 AM, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I mean, I would only guess realism, depicting a narrative that could have happened as it would have.
Sorry if my comments are unwanted.
Luke

On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 4:48 PM, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I hope I'm not interrupting like this, the discussion is interesting, if a llittle difficult to follow, who is taking what side. May I ask what the features of prose narrative are? I can only guess, and don't think google will help much.

Cheers,
Luke

On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 4:19 PM, Tim Allen <0000002899e7d020-dmarc-[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I have never noticed any similarity between Heaney and Larkin, except that both are so highly rated. I dislike Larkin and am largely indifferent to Heaney. The important point below is the reference to "Larkin’s whole stated insistence on the poem as self-contained artefact with no resource to a ‘myth-kitty’ or other writings etc." which is very much Movement poetics. It is Larkin's success in doing this which impresses me, however much I dislike it and however far it is from my own enthusiasms. The thing is, and this is where it gets complicated, I find nothing wrong in having that as your precept - the same idea lies behind haiku for starters - but the whole point of Movement poetry is that it is, finally, nothing of the sort, it is a poetry infused with tones pointing to small-mindedness and prejudice - a twisted view of the world in the guise of realism. It is that 'guise' that I loathe, and the echo of that realistic guise reverberates through most mainstream English poetry right through the decades since.

Two poets that the mainstream rated who did not share that poetic were Ted Hughes and Peter Redgrove. But Heaney is less easy to remove entirely from that Movement legacy.

Cheers

Tim
    
On 14 Sep 2017, at 15:33, Jamie McKendrick wrote:

If you knew Heaney was quoting (the quotation marks make it clear) then to call it Heaney’s declaration is ‘deliberately’ misleading. Doubly so to then gratuitously link it to Larkin’s supposed ‘descriptive’ bent (in your view some kind of furniture inventory), especially when Heaney will know the source and will have taken account – as the rest of the poem makes clear – of the complex qualifications that Stevens appends “It is not/ The thing described, nor false facsimile.” Besides which the whole poem with its reference to 4 other authors goes against Larkin’s whole stated insistence on the poem as self-contained artefact with no resource to a ‘myth-kitty’ or other writings etc.
   Once again, one of the favourite sports on this list, Heaney has been portrayed as a disciple of the Movement, with the intent of belittling him. It crops up at least every year, usually attended by a silly use of the word ‘empirical’. I can’t be bothered to get into it again.
Jamie