Bogland

BogBogland by Seamus Heaney archaeological journey into the country's past bogland = memory of the landscape first stanza = american - flat prairies vs rugged irish landscape irish mentality 'our pioneers keep striking/inwards and downwards' - 'each layer they strip seems camped on before' hyperbole (exaggeration) 'the wet centre is bottomless' celebration/ the marvellous - wonder at the objects preserved Nature - celebrates irish bogs Memory - metaphor for the consciousness of the irish race changing world poetry- sense that the excavation if the bog is similar to a poets 'excavation' of his memories all aspects of past world included - animal 'great irish elk' human 'butter sunk under recovered salty and white' nature 'waterlogged trunks' metaphor - bog = black butter. - elk skeleton in museum = crate full of air continually striking 'inwards' obsessing about the present, and 'downwards' obsessing about our past overly introspective and inward looking - remember all that has happened to us- can not be "defined" as the bog cannot be, irish mentality cannot be defined by one narrative, many different lights. our 'pioneers' discover the past bog= 'kind' 'butter' 'crusting' -> nourishing nuturing terms

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