Seamus Heaney: 'Storm on the Island' Mr Bruff Analysis

Summary

This video offers an in-depth analysis of Seamus Heaney's poem 'Storm on the Island,' exploring its themes of nature's power and Northern Ireland's conflict. The discussion covers the poem's structure, language, and historical context, including Heaney's use of iambic pentameter and everyday Irish speech to reflect the island's struggle. The video also draws parallels between the storm's chaos and the political unrest of the time, suggesting the poem serves as a metaphor for the ongoing troubles.

Takeaways

• 📜 Seamus Heaney's poem 'Storm on the Island' is analyzed, focusing on its publication in his first collection 'Death of a Naturalist'.
• 🏠 The poem describes the preparation and resilience against a storm on the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland.
• 🌪 The poem can be interpreted as a metaphor for the power of nature or the conflict in Northern Ireland.
• 🏞️ Heaney uses the setting of the Aran Islands to explore themes of rural life, identity, and ancestry.
• 🔍 The poem's structure, including the use of one long stanza and enjambment, reflects the relentless nature of the storm and can be linked to the continuous conflict.
• 🎯 The use of everyday language amidst descriptions of power and conflict adds a layer of complexity to the poem's interpretation.
• 🔊 The poem's rhyme scheme, with half rhymes at the beginning and end, suggests a cyclical nature of the storm and the inevitable return of conflict.
• ✏️ Heaney's use of iambic pentameter, a traditional English poetic form, is a deliberate choice to infuse his Irish experiences into a central English poetic tradition.
• 🌐 The poem's structure and language choices reflect the historical and ongoing tensions between the Irish and the English, as well as between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.
• 👁️‍🗨️ The analysis invites readers to reconsider the poem with a fresh perspective, encouraging a deeper understanding of its layered meanings.

Q & A

Who is Seamus Heaney and what is his significance in the context of the poem 'Storm on the Island'?

Seamus Heaney was a Northern Irish poet, playwright, and translator born in 1939 and died in 2013. His early poetry, including 'Storm on the Island', often focused on rural life, identity, and ancestry. The poem is significant as it was published in his first poetry collection, 'Death of a Naturalist', which marked the beginning of his prestigious career.

What is the historical context behind the publication of 'Storm on the Island'?

The poem 'Storm on the Island' was published in Heaney's first collection 'Death of a Naturalist' after three of his poems, including this one, were published in the New Statesman in 1964. The collection's publication by Faber and Faber was significant for Heaney's career, leading to prestigious jobs and further recognition.

What are the two main interpretations of 'Storm on the Island' discussed in the script?

The two main interpretations of 'Storm on the Island' are as a poem about the power of nature, specifically a storm on the Aran Islands, and as a metaphor for the conflict in Northern Ireland.

How does the structure of 'Storm on the Island' reflect the overwhelming power of nature?

The structure of 'Storm on the Island', which consists of one long stanza with long and complex sentences and minimal breaks, reflects the overwhelming and continuous power of nature, similar to the non-stop barrage of a storm.

What is the significance of the use of enjambment in 'Storm on the Island'?

Enjambment, where sentences run over into separate lines, contributes to the poem's sense of a relentless barrage, mirroring the unceasing assault of the storm on the house, which is a key aspect of the poem's portrayal of nature's power.

How does the use of everyday language in 'Storm on the Island' contrast with the language of conflict and power?

The use of everyday language such as 'you know what I mean' and the oxymoron 'exploding comfortably' contrasts with the language of conflict and power, suggesting that the narrator has normalized the conflict-filled world they live in, which may not make sense to an outsider.

What is the role of rhyme in 'Storm on the Island' and how does it relate to the poem's themes?

The poem uses half rhyme sparingly, mostly at the beginning and end, creating a cyclical structure that suggests the inescapable and recurring nature of the storm, reflecting the idea that such events are a regular part of life for the narrator.

Why is 'Storm on the Island' potentially considered a dramatic monologue?

The poem is considered a dramatic monologue because it presents a single person's speech to an implied listener, reflecting a one-sided view of the experience. This form allows the reader to understand the speaker's character and the imbalance in the relationship between the speaker and nature.

What is the historical context of the conflict in Northern Ireland and how might it relate to 'Storm on the Island'?

The conflict in Northern Ireland, known as 'the Troubles', involved sectarian violence between Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists. The poem's title and its content, with language suggestive of warfare, might metaphorically represent this conflict, especially considering Heaney's background as a Northern Irish Catholic.

How does the use of iambic pentameter in 'Storm on the Island' serve the poem's themes?

Iambic pentameter, a traditional English poetic form, is used in the poem to juxtapose the wild, uncontrollable forces of nature or conflict with the structured form of English poetry. This contrast could symbolize the struggle between the Irish and English identities or the opposing sides in the Northern Irish conflict.

Outlines

00:00

📜 Introduction to Seamus Heaney's 'Storm on the Island'

The video begins with an introduction to the analysis of Seamus Heaney's poem 'Storm on the Island'. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding the poet's background, particularly his birth in 1939 and death in 2013, and his identity as a Northern Irish poet. Heaney's early work, including 'Storm on the Island', often explores rural life, identity, and ancestry. The poem is part of Heaney's first poetry collection, 'Death of a Naturalist', which includes three poems initially published in 1964. The collection's publication by Faber and Faber was significant for Heaney's career. The video sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the poem's themes and form, suggesting that it may be interpreted in the context of power and conflict, particularly relating to the natural environment or as a metaphor for the conflict in Northern Ireland.

05:02

🌪️ The Literal Interpretation and Structure of 'Storm on the Island'

The speaker offers a literal interpretation of 'Storm on the Island', describing the poem's setting on the Aran Islands and the inhabitants' preparations for an impending storm. The poem's structure is analyzed, highlighting the use of a single long stanza and complex sentences that mimic the relentless nature of the storm. The lack of stanza breaks and the enjambment contribute to a sense of a continuous barrage, reflecting the storm's overwhelming power. The speaker also notes the use of everyday language and oxymorons, suggesting that the poem reflects the narrator's normalization of a conflict-filled environment. The analysis touches on the poem's rhyme scheme, or lack thereof, indicating a sense of chaos and lack of control, with half rhymes in the opening and closing lines suggesting a cyclical, inescapable nature of the storm.

10:03

🗣️ The Dramatic Monologue and Historical Context

The video suggests that 'Storm on the Island' could be interpreted as a dramatic monologue, a form where a single speaker addresses an absent listener. This form is typically used to reveal the character of the speaker through their monologue. The speaker connects the poem to the historical and cultural context of the Aran Islands, emphasizing their significance in Irish history and literature. Heaney's use of the pronoun 'we' is highlighted as a way to convey a collective experience, possibly reflecting the shared experiences of a community. The video also discusses the poem's structure, noting its brevity and lack of a sinister plot reveal, which are typical elements of dramatic monologues. The form is used to present a one-sided view, potentially reflecting the imbalance in the relationship between the speaker and nature, or as a metaphor for the historical and ongoing conflicts in Ireland.

15:08

⚖️ The Conflict in Northern Ireland and Its Relation to the Poem

The speaker provides historical context for the political and sectarian conflict known as 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland. This background is crucial for understanding the poem's potential allegorical references to the conflict. The video draws parallels between the poem's title, which contains the word 'Stormont', the seat of the Northern Irish parliament, and the poem's content, which can be read as a metaphor for the political turmoil. The speaker discusses the use of warfare language in the poem, such as 'blasts', 'pummels', 'exploding', 'bombarded', 'strafes', and 'salvo', suggesting that these words could allude to the violent nature of the conflict. The video encourages viewers to reread the poem with this context in mind and to consider the implications of its language choices.

20:11

🎭 The Use of Blank Verse and Its Symbolism

The video concludes with an analysis of the poem's use of blank verse, a structured form of poetry with iambic pentameter and no rhyme. The speaker notes the irony of using such a controlled poetic form to describe the chaos of a storm or the conflict in Ireland. Heaney's intention to blend the central tradition of English poetry with his Irish experience is discussed, suggesting that the use of iambic pentameter alongside Irish colloquial language reflects the cultural and political tensions between Ireland and England. The speaker also considers the possibility that the structured verse contrasts with the poem's wild subject matter, symbolizing the struggle between order and chaos, or the opposing forces in the conflict in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Keywords

💡Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney was a Northern Irish poet, playwright, and translator born in 1939 and passed away in 2013. He is known for his early poetry that often focused on rural life, identity, and ancestry. In the video, Heaney's background is crucial for understanding the themes in his poem 'Storm on the Island,' which reflects his experiences and the cultural context of Northern Ireland.

💡Storm on the Island

'Storm on the Island' is a poem by Seamus Heaney that is part of his first poetry collection, 'Death of a Naturalist.' The poem is analyzed in the video for its complex themes, including the power of nature and metaphorically, the conflict in Northern Ireland. The title itself is significant as it hints at the poem's focus on a storm's impact, which can be read as a metaphor for the political and social unrest in the region.

💡Death of a Naturalist

'Death of a Naturalist' is Seamus Heaney's first poetry collection, published in 1966, which includes the poem 'Storm on the Island.' The collection is significant as it marks Heaney's debut as a poet and introduces themes that would recur in his later work, such as the natural world, rural life, and the complexities of identity and heritage.

💡Aran Islands

The Aran Islands are a group of three islands on the west coast of Ireland. In the video, they are mentioned as the setting for 'Storm on the Island' and other poems in 'Death of a Naturalist.' The islands are noted for their harsh weather and stark beauty, which are reflected in the poem's depiction of a storm's force.

💡Power of Nature

The 'power of nature' is a central theme in the video's analysis of 'Storm on the Island.' It refers to the overwhelming and uncontrollable forces of nature, such as the storm described in the poem. The video discusses how Heaney's use of language and structure mirrors the relentless and destructive power that nature can exert.

💡Conflict in Northern Ireland

The 'conflict in Northern Ireland' is a significant context for interpreting 'Storm on the Island.' The video suggests that the poem's imagery of a storm can be seen as a metaphor for the political and sectarian violence that occurred during 'The Troubles.' This interpretation draws on the historical backdrop of division and strife in Northern Ireland during Heaney's lifetime.

💡Dramatic Monologue

A 'dramatic monologue' is a form of poetry where a single speaker addresses an audience or another character, revealing their character through their speech. The video tentatively suggests that 'Storm on the Island' could be read as a dramatic monologue, with the speaker representing an islander's experience of a storm, which might also reflect broader cultural or political experiences.

💡Iambic Pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a type of metrical line used in poetry, consisting of five pairs of syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed. In the video, it is noted that Heaney uses iambic pentameter in 'Storm on the Island,' which is significant as it contrasts with the poem's chaotic subject matter and may reflect the poet's attempt to marry English poetic tradition with Irish experience.

💡Enjambment

Enjambment is a poetic device where a sentence or clause extends over two or more lines of verse without a pause. The video highlights Heaney's use of enjambment in 'Storm on the Island' to create a sense of continuous, overwhelming force, mirroring the unrelenting nature of the storm and possibly the ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland.

💡Rhyme Scheme

A 'rhyme scheme' refers to the pattern of end rhymes in a poem. The video discusses the poem's use of half rhyme and the lack of a strict rhyme scheme, which contributes to the sense of chaos and lack of control, fitting the themes of both the storm's power and the tumultuous history of Northern Ireland.

💡Oxymoron

An 'oxymoron' is a figure of speech that combines contradictory or opposite words to create a new meaning. The video points out the use of oxymorons like 'exploding comfortably' in 'Storm on the Island,' which may reflect the speaker's adaptation to a life filled with conflict and the juxtaposition of the English poetic form with the Irish setting.

Highlights

Introduction to Seamus Heaney's poem 'Storm on the Island' and its analysis.

Heaney's background as a Northern Irish poet, playwright, and translator.

The significance of Heaney's birth and death years in relation to the poem.

Focus on rural life, identity, and ancestry in Heaney's early poetry.

Publication history of 'Storm on the Island' and its inclusion in 'Death of a Naturalist'.

The importance of being published by Faber and Faber for Heaney's career.

Contextual details of the Aran Islands and their influence on the poem.

Two interpretations of 'Storm on the Island': power of nature and Northern Ireland conflict.

Literal interpretation of the poem describing the preparation for a storm.

Analysis of the poem's structure reflecting the overwhelming power of nature.

Use of enjambment and long sentences to mirror the storm's relentlessness.

Contrasting everyday language with the language of conflict and power.

Exploring the poem's rhyme scheme and its reflection of the storm's uncontrollable nature.

Suggestion that 'Storm on the Island' could be a dramatic monologue.

Historical context of the Troubles in Ireland and its potential connection to the poem.

Analysis of the poem's language suggesting a metaphor for the conflict in Northern Ireland.

The use of iambic pentameter in the poem and its significance.

Conclusion and call to action for viewers to subscribe and engage with the channel.

Transcripts

Hello everybody and welcome to this video where I’m going to analyse the Seamus Heaney

poem ‘Storm on the Island’.

As always, please give this video a thumbs up, and subscribe

to the channel.

So let's begin with the poet Seamus Heaney.

And when you're analysing a poem, you don't

just want to write down any old detail about the poet.

You just want to look at what are

the details from the poet's life that help us to understand the poem itself, in this

case ‘Storm on the Island’.

So Heaney was born in 1939 and died in 2013.

Those dates will be significant, and I'll

explain them later.

He was a Northern Irish poet, playwright, and translator.

And his

early poetry ‘Storm on the Island’ is an early poem, focused often on rural life

and matters of identity and ancestry.

So ‘Storm on the Island’ was published in Heaney's first poetry collection ‘Death

of a Naturalist’, and the publishing history of this is quite interesting, and it'll help

us to understand the form of the poem.

So, basically, Heaney had three poems which were published in 1964 in the New Statesman,

and one of those was ‘Storm on the Island’ along with ‘Digging’ and ‘Scaffolding’.

The following month, the Faber and Faber editor Charles Monteith approached Heaney and asked

him to send him some poems to look for publication.

And that eventually led to his first book,

‘Death of a Naturalist’.

And this is really important because getting signed up to Faber and Faber was a big deal

for Heaney.

It led to him getting some really prestigious jobs and everything else that

happened to him.

So the publication of the three poems, one of which was ‘Storm on

the Island’ is really significant.

Now I'm talking about that because the context of the publishing and the context of how these

poems were written is important in helping us understand the poem.

‘Storm on the Island’

is one of three poems within ‘Death of a Naturalist’ which was written about the

Aran Islands, a group of three islands on the west coast of Ireland.

In ‘Death of a Naturalist’, ‘Storm on the Island’ follows ‘Synge on Aran’,

a poem similar in many ways which describes the power of nature on the Aran Islands.

And

this contextual detail is important later, again, when we explore the form of the poem.

So I'm going to explore two different interpretations of this poem ‘Storm on the Island’.

There

are actually lots of different interpretations.

You can look at it as a love poem about two

people in love and the metaphor of their relationship.

But, as you're probably studying this poem

from the power and conflict cluster, I'm going to look at two ways of interpreting the poem

which are relevant to that.

So it's possible to look at the idea of this being a poem about power because it's a poem

about the power of nature, with the literal interpretation of the poem being about a storm

which hits a house on the Aran Islands.

And this picture on the left here is actually

one of the Aran islands, gives you an idea of the setting.

Secondly though, on the right, we can focus more on the conflict aspect of the poem, which

can be read as a metaphor for the conflict in Northern Ireland.

But before we get there, let's look at a literal interpretation of the poem.

The content is

quite complex, so I'll offer a translation into simple English to get us started.

We are prepared: we build our houses squat, Sink walls in rock and roof them with good

slate.

So the speaker is telling us that – we never

really know who the ‘we’ is – ‘We are ready.

We build our houses short and wide

to withstand the powerful wind.

We lay firm foundations, and we build strong roofs.’

The wisened earth has never troubled us With hay, so as you can see, there are no

stacks Or stooks that can be lost.

Nor are there

trees Which might prove company when it blows full

Blast: you know what I mean - leaves and branches Can raise a chorus in a gale

So that you can listen to the thing you fear Forgetting that it pummels your house too.

So the narrator is saying, ‘Where we live, the earth is so dried up and shrivelled, we've

never been able to farm to grow crops.

So there's no threat of losing the hay that we've

grown because we don't have the conditions for farming.

And, as you can see, there's

no hay or corn here that could be lost in the storm.

There aren't trees either, which,

if we did have trees, they could keep us company during the storm because of the sounds that

are made as the wind blasts through their branches and leaves, which can be a very loud

noise.

And that kind of noise allows you to listen to what you're afraid of and forget

that it's attacking your house at the same time.’

But there are no trees, no natural shelter.

You might think that the sea is company,

Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs But no: when it begins, the flung spray hits

The very windows, spits like a tame cat Turned savage.

So, ‘there are no trees; there's no shelter.

And you might imagine that the sea down by

the cliffs there will keep us company as it splashes away on the cliffs.

But no, it doesn't

keep us company because, when the storm begins, the waves smash against our windows.

The spray

of the waves hits our windows, suddenly changing from something comforting into something vicious.’

We just sit tight while wind dives And strafes invisibly.

Space is a salvo.

We are bombarded by the empty air.

Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

This last bit is, as with a lot of the poems in the anthology, a little bit ambiguous now

but, ‘We just wait patiently indoors while the storm whirls around us outside.

The wind

is invisible as if what we fear is non-existent.’

So, to summarise then, the narrator of the poem describes how well-prepared he and others

are for a coming storm.

They've built their houses to withstand the battering that they're

going to take.

But as the poem progresses, this confidence begins to dwindle.

The narrator

becomes more and more desperate.

Now, as always, we aim to analyse language, structure, and form when we're looking at

a poem.

And structure and form are the more sophisticated lines of analysis, so I'm not

going to go through every bit of language in this poem.

the simile ‘spits like a tame

cat’, some of the more obvious things that you might have picked up on in your own reading.

I’m going to try and look at the more complex things.

If we see this poem, then, as a presentation of the uncontrollable power of nature, it

compares nicely to ‘Extract from The Prelude’ by William Wordsworth.

And much of the poem

structure really reflects the uncomfortable and uncontrollable aspect of nature.

So, as I said, there are two interpretations – the power of nature or the Northern Ireland

conflict.

I'm just talking about the first one to begin with.

So if you look at the poem on the screen now, the poem consists of one long stanza, one

long verse, which is actually made up of many long and complex sentences.

If you read the

poem aloud, you realise there's not much room to stop for breath as the poem progresses.

So, both the lack of stanza breaks and the lack of breathing space reflects the overwhelming

situation the speaker finds themselves in.

It is a non-stop barrage.

There's no start

time to stop and pause and think and breathe, and that is very much what it's like being

in the danger of this storm.

Similarly, the poem contains on enjambment where the sentences run over into separate

lines.

Here's an example where a single sentence spans six lines:

Nor are there trees Which might prove company when it blows full

Blast: you know what I mean - leaves and branches Can raise a chorus in a gale

So that you can listen to the thing you fear Forgetting that it pummels your house too.

So Heaney's use of enjambment, like the use of one long stanza, like the use of very long

sentences, creates a constant barrage of information which reflects the constant barrage of the

storm on the house.

So it's not enough to just spot the device.

You've got to actually link it to the meaning.

And if we're looking at the power of nature, that overwhelming constant barrage is reflected

through the structural choices.

Some things seem a little bit confusing though.

In the midst of this power, Heaney uses everyday

language such as ‘you know what I mean’.

And this contrast between the language of

conflict and power and the language of everyday life seems oxymoronic.

It doesn't seem to

make sense.

But, perhaps, it’s used to simply suggest that this is everyday life to the

narrator, as awful as it sounds to us.

And this is further demonstrated when Heaney uses

the oxymoron ‘exploding comfortably’.

And these two words don't seem to make sense

together, but they reflect how the speaker has made sense of the conflict-filled world

in which he lives, even if it might not make sense to us, or how he’s used to this very

conflicted, contrasting way of life.

This sense of the storm being nothing new for the narrator is reflected in the poem’s

rhyme scheme.

The poem contains very little in the way of rhyme.

Its lack of control is

reflected, once again, in the lack of rhyme.

It's an uncontrollable storm, and, in many

ways, the poem itself lacks control.

However, there is some half rhyme in the opening and closing couplets.

So if we look at the

first couplet here: We are prepared: we build our houses squat,

Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.

That's an example of half rhyme.

I taught before about half rhyme, but it's where the

stressed syllables of the end consonants rhyme, but the vowel sounds before them do not.

Now,

this is a bit confusing, so let me show you what I mean with ‘squat’ and ‘slate’.

The final consonant sound is that [t] sound in ‘squat’ and ‘slate’.

It's the same

sound, so there's some rhyme taking place.

But the vowel sound before is different.

In

‘squat’, it's the [wha] sound.

And in ‘slate’, it's the [ei] sound.

So that's

a half rhyme because the consonant sounds rhyme but not the vowel sounds that go before

them.

And we see the same in the final two lines of the poem.

We're bombarded by the empty air.

Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

Look at ‘air’ and ‘fear’.

Both have the same consonant sound at the end, the ‘r’

sound, the [ruh] sound.

But the vowel sounds are different.

In ‘air’, we’ve got the

[eh] vowel sound.

And in ‘fear’, we've got the ‘e’ vowel sound.

So there are two things to explore here.

We get no marks for just saying that half rhyme

is used.

We've got to think about, ‘How can we link the use of half rhyme to the overwhelming

power of the storm and what the poem is explaining?’

Well, the use of half rhyme ties in with the other usages in the poem.

The wild storm refuses

to be controlled or organised, so only a half rhyme is possible amidst the chaos.

Healy

probably knew that to use full rhyme here would have been too perfect, too obvious,

too explicit and too very much different to the rest of the poem.

It would be too perfect

for a representation of the chaos of the storm.

But the bigger question is, why have any rhyme

at all?

And I think the answer lies in where the rhyme occurs at the start and the end.

So, in terms of the rhyme pattern, the poem ends as it begins, with a half-rhyming couplet.

And this gives the poem that cyclical structure, creating a sense that the storm is inescapable

and will continue to occur time and time again; that this is just a way of life for the narrator

and the other people, whoever they are, in the poem.

Pretty clever that.

I love Heaney's

use of rhyme.

I analysed his poem ‘Follower’ on this channel too - very similar things

taking place in that poem.

Now, the form.

I'm going to suggest, tentatively, that this is a dramatic monologue.

Many people

assume that ‘Storm on the Island’ is just describing a moment in Heaney's life.

And

this is why I said it's important to know that this is a poem about the Aran Islands.

And a number of Irish writers historically have written about the Aran Islands, seeing

them as a link to the historical past of Island.

The Aran Islands contains some of the oldest

archaeological remains in Ireland.

So, the poem can be seen as typical of early Heaney, in that it explores both rural life

and identity.

Not through an experience Heaney had, but through a historical view of ancestry

and past.

Healy has commented before how, in his autobiographical poems, they’re written

in the first-person pronoun ‘I’, but how poems presented with the pronoun ‘we’

present a wider cultural experience.

So ‘Storm on the Island’ can be read as an example of a dramatic monologue then.

A

dramatic monologue is a poem where we have a single person talking to someone else, but

the speaker is not the poet and the listener is silent throughout.

So, essentially, it

means that we're listening to a one-way conversation.

And it's a form which allows us to identify

the speaker's character from what they say.

So, the poem does fit those conventions of a dramatic monologue.

Heaney is taking on

the persona of an Islander describing the horrors of the storm.

You could say there

are some things missing.

It's not as long as your typical dramatic monologue, and we

don't have this gradual reveal of a sinister underlying plot, as we do in a lot of dramatic

monologues like ‘My Last Duchess’, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’.

But the other elements are certainly

there.

So, we could say that it at least adheres to some of the conventions of the dramatic

monologue.

And the question, again, would be, ‘Well, why?’

Well, the form presents a one-sided view of everything.

There's no equality in a dramatic

monologue.

We literally hear nothing from one side of the conversation.

So, perhaps,

we could say the dramatic monologue form reflects the imbalance in the relationship between

the speaker and nature.

There is only one dominant voice in that relationship.

And the

lack of voice suggests that nature is indifferent to what's going on.

It really doesn't care

that it batters the narrator's home and fills him with fear.

So those are some of the ways we can look at this as a power poem about the power of

nature.

But we can also see the poem as being a poem about the conflict in Ireland and Northern

Ireland.

So, I'm just going to spend two minutes giving you the context of the troubles in

Ireland.

I asked my good friend Pete, who is Irish, to send me an email explaining this.

And the poor guy, I didn't realise it was going to end up being a 20,000-word essay.

It's a complex story, but I'll give you a two-minute overview.

So in the late 12th century, Britain invaded and took over Ireland, beginning small-scale

immigration with Lords coming over and settling the land.

Now, obviously, the people in Ireland

were not happy with that, and this began a series of small uprising and conflicts all

over the country where the Irish were essentially kicking off against their oppressors.

But

in the sixteenth century, things went up a notch.

Huge tracts of land were confiscated

and settled by planters who made plantations.

And this had the effect of uprooting the traditional

culture and injecting British and Protestant communities and identities.

Now the planters were from all over Britain, and the ones who settled in Northern Ireland

were largely Protestants from Scotland.

So the Irish rose up and threw the Brits out

in the 16th century.

And the Irish were able to clear three provinces, but the Ulster Scots

held on.

In 1922 Southern Ireland became a separate country outside of the UK, and Northern

Ireland stayed part of the UK.

And Heaney was born shortly after this in 1939, which

is why it's so important to know when he was born, what he was living through, and when

he was writing this poem.

Now, speaking in very general terms, there were the Protestants who considered themselves

British and wanted Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom.

And opposed to this

were the Catholics who wanted to leave the UK and have a united Ireland.

And Catholics

in Northern Ireland – Heaney was one of those – might face persecution from the

police and government in Northern Ireland.

So in the 60s when Heaney was writing this poem, Northern Ireland was filled with sectarian

problems.

There was a civil rights movement for the Irish Catholics, and the goals were

to end discrimination against the Catholics.

So, one example is that not everybody had

one vote at the time.

In Northern Ireland, business owners got two votes.

And most business

owners were Protestant.

So there was a real sense of injustice and unfairness.

Now the

unionists, who were loyal to the Queen, kicked off against that civil rights movement, and

that led to the formation of the paramilitary IRA.

And this was a group set up to protect

the besieged Catholics of the north, but they also had an agenda to drive the British out

of through a bombing and terror campaign.

In 1998 we had the Good Friday Agreement, which was supposedly the ending of the troubles.

But of course, as everybody is aware, it's still going on today.

There's still sectarian

tensions and, maybe not all-out conflict, but definitely still problems.

So to sum it up because I know it's confusing, you've got to look at the mentalities involved.

The Irish mentality is that ‘the British came in, stole our land.

We fought for over

800 years to get them out and managed it with the formation of the Free State in 1922, with

the exception of Northern Ireland.’

But, of course, all the British people who came

over in the informal plantations came to see themselves as Irish.

Their families were born

and raised in Ireland, and there's this tension that's still there.

So that's the context

you need to know.

“So why does the poem have anything to do with that?”

I hear you ask.

Well, look at

the title ‘Storm on the Island’.

The first eight letters of the title spell ‘Stormont’

which is the name given to the Parliament Buildings in Ireland.

So there is a definite

link between the poem and politics.

Now, you might not be convinced by that, so let's look for some more political conflict

content in the poem.

In terms of a structure analysis, all of the structure points that

I've already made about this being about the power of nature, the relentless inescapable

nature of the attack of the storm, can also be applied to the idea of conflict in this

interpretation too.

So I don't need to repeat those ideas, but the enjambment, the one long

stanza, and the lack of punctuation, and the cyclical rhyme scheme, all of those things

can be applied to the nature of the troubles in Northern Ireland, the conflict in Ireland.

But there are some differences when it comes to language as well.

When talking about language,

Heaney once said in 1972 in The Guardian that the poet's skill ‘lies in the summoning

and meshing of the subconscious and semantic energies of words’.

That's a great quotation

which points to the fact that multiple meanings can be taken out of words and phrases in poetry.

So let's have a look at some of the language choices that seem to suggest this is a poem

about the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Why does the poet use the pronoun ‘we’?

Well,

one interpretation is that it reflects a sense of solidarity between, in this case, the Catholics.

Any sense of ‘we’ or ‘us’ suggests with it a sense of ‘them’.

So the language

choice here suggests opposition.

But the most obvious language points to make would be to

look at the language of warfare, which is used within this poem.

We've got ‘blasts’,

‘pummels’, ‘exploding’, ‘bombarded’.

Those are four examples.

There are two others

which are a little bit more complex, but ‘strafes’ and ‘salvo’ also, that's the language

of warfare.

‘Strafe’ means ‘to repeatedly attack with gunfire or bombs’, whereas ‘salvo’

is the ‘simultaneous attack of bombs or gunfire’.

So we're left with this question

– If this poem is just about a storm, why use numerous references to war?

And perhaps it's because the storm itself can be read as a metaphor for the violent

political troubles that Ireland has experienced.

It's something you can look at afresh now.

Look at the poem afresh and reread the whole thing in that light and see if you can pick

out any of the details.

Put them in the comment section if you do.

The final thing that I want to talk about is the use of blank verse in this poem.

So,

blank verse is where you have lines of iambic pentameter with no rhyme.

Okay, there's a

tiny little bit of rhyme.

But, mostly, there's no rhyme, and the lines are in iambic pentameter.

Do you remember iambic pentameter?

It’s lines of ten syllables with alternating stressed

and unstressed syllables.

So, We are prepared: we build our houses squat

You can see here, on the screen, ten syllables.

Every

other syllable is stressed.

We put the stress of our pronunciation on it.

So this is really

interesting to me because why use such a controlled structure in a poem which is really about

the very opposite of control, in a poem which is either about the power and uncontrollable

nature of a storm or the power and uncontrollable nature of the conflict in Ireland?

Well, Heaney once spoke about how he wanted to find a way of ‘making the central tradition

of English poetry, which we'd absorbed in college and university, absorb our own particular

eccentric experience’.

Now, as a student of literature yourself, you'll no doubt agree that iambic pentameter

is certainly a central tradition of English poetry.

So you could say that Heaney is using

iambic pentameter very cleverly because he wants to use, as he puts it here, the tradition

of English poetry, but he wants to infuse it with his own Irish ancestry and experience

here.

And what I like as well is that you could talk about how there's a real mixture here

of the very English iambic pentameter and also the everyday Irish talk, as I talked

about so far, the sort of conversational ‘you know what I mean’.

So we've got two things juxtaposed, two opposites put together – the very English iambic pentameter

and the everyday Irish talk.

And that could, of course, reflect the conflict between the

Irish and the English.

Heaney said, in the past, that he writes in iambic pentameter

for less intense stuff.

So the use in this poem certainly does seem to be deliberate

and complex.

And if we're thinking about this in terms of conflict between Ireland and Northern

Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, then what better way than to use a very Irish setting

and very Irish conversational phrases but, also, the very English iambic pentameter to

represent that conflict?

Now, you might think that's too far-fetched.

And you can go for a similar interpretation,

that the contrast between the wild storm and the control of the poet reflects the contrast

between the opposing sides in the troubles, or the contrast between the weather and the

narrator in the power storm-based interpretation.

And, again, if you've got a better idea, put

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