Mythologising History: Archetypes and  Irish Identity in Seamus Heaneys Poems  Punishment and Tollund Man

RAKHI N P

Volume : III, Issue : III, March - 2014

Mythologising History: Archetypes and Irish Identity in Seamus Heaneys Poems Punishment and Tollund Man

Rakhi N P

Abstract :

Seamus Heaney considers Irish identity as a product of binaries. That difference is again complicated with its links to place, past and the communal consciousness as seen in his poems �Tollund Man� and �Punishment�. All these formulations of differences in his poems actually lead to integration. There is an integrating principle which lies ahead of all differentiations of oral, feminine, unconscious v/s cultured, masculine and conscious. History is reduced to myths and archetypes synthesize both past and present. Both �Punishment� and �Tollund Man has such archetypes either that of violence or that of martyrdom.