In the limbo of languages: Linguistic change in Seamus Heaney

İngiliz sömürgeciliğinin sonucu İrlandada yaşanan dil sorunu, çağdaş şiirin seçkin temsilcilerinden Seamus Heaneynin yapıtlarında geniş yer bulmuştur. Ozan, İrlanda dilinde görülen büyük aşınmayı ele alarak sorunun tarihsel nedenlerine vurgu yapmış ve dilsel yitimin sonuçları üzerinde durmuştur. Sanatsal başarısını İngiliz yazınının öncülerine borçlu olan Heaneynin, biyolojik ataları ile yazınsal atalarının kullandığı dil arasında kaldığı görülür. Ancak, bu açmazdan, İrlandada konuşulan İngilizce ile Londradaki arasında belirgin farklılıklar bulunduğu sonucuna vararak kurtulur. Sanat dilinin salt egemenliğini benimsemesi evrensellik kazanmasıyla birlikte ulaştığı son aşamanın ürünüdür. Bu yönden bakıldığında, İngilizce artık ozanın ilk şiirlerindeki gibi sömürgecilerin dili değil, farklı dillerin sunduğu olanaklarla zenginleşen ve onun poetik katkılarıyla gelişen, değişime açık yüce bir dildir.

Dillerin arafında: Seamus heaney de dilsel değişim

The language issue ensuing from English colonialism in Ireland has had a wide treatment in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, a distinguished representative of contemporary poetry. Discussing for the great erosion in Irish language, the poet has underlined the historical reasons and emphasised the results of language loss. It is seen that Heaney, who is indebted in his artistic achievement to the pioneers of English literature, vacillates between the language used by his literary ancestors and that of his biological ones. However, he eliminates this dichotomy by asserting that the English spoken in Ireland has some distinctive features from the English spoken in London. His acceptance of the absolute supremacy of artistic language is the product of the last stage he has reached in tandem with gaining universality. From this point of view, English is no longer the tongue of the colonizer as it appears in his early poems, but a sublime language open to change, enriched by the opportunities offered by various languages and improved through his poetic contributions.

PDF

___

Burris, Sidney (1990). The Poetry of Resistance: Seamus Heaney and the Pastoral Tradition. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Corcoran, Neil (1986). Seamus Heaney. London-Boston: Faber and Faber.
Dau, Duc (2003). Seamus Heaneys Religious Redress, Literature & Theology, 17 (1), 32-43.
Foster, John William (1995). The Poetry of Seamus Heaney [Wintering Out]. Robert F. Garratt (Ed.). Critical Essays on Seamus Heaney (pp.25-38). New York: G. K. Hall & Co.
Hart, Henry (1993). Seamus Heaney: Poet of Contrary Progressions. Syracuse-New York: Syracuse University Press.
Heaney, Seamus (1972). Wintering Out. London: Faber and Faber.
Heaney, Seamus (1975). North. London: Faber and Faber.
Heaney, Seamus (1980). Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968-1978. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Heaney, Seamus (1984). Station Island. London: Faber and Faber.
Heaney, Seamus (1987). The Haw Lantern. London: Faber and Faber.
Heaney, Seamus (2001). Electric Light. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Joyce, James (1996). A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man. Berkshire: Penguin Books.
Kearney, Hugh (2007). Ireland: Contested Ideas and History. New York: New York University Press.
Kennedy, David (2002). Mound-dwellers and Mummers: Language and Community in Seamus Heaneys Wintering Out. Irish Studies Review, 10 (3), 303-313.
Kiberd, Declan (1996). Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage Books.
Kinahan, Frank (1983). Artist on Art: An Interview with Seamus Heaney. Critical Inquiry, 8 (3), 405- 414.
Klitgard, Ida (2006). (Dis)Location and Its (Dis) Contents: Translation as Exile in James Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Finnegans Wake, Michael Böss, Irena Gilsenan Nordin, Britta Olinder (Eds.). Re-Mapping Exile: Realities and Metaphors in Irish Literature and History. (pp. 107-134). Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
Moloney, Karen M. (1991). Heaneys Love to Ireland. Twentieth Century Literature, 37 (3), 273-288.
Murphy, Andrew (2000). Seamus Heaney. Devon: Northcote House in association with the British Council.
Nash, Catherine (1999). Irish Placenames: Postcolonial Locations. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 24 (4), 457-480.
OBrien, Eugene (2003). Seamus Heaney: Searches for Answers. London-Dublin-Sterling-Virginia: Pluto Press.
Parker, Michael (1993). The Making of the Poet. London: Macmillan.
Ouinn, Justin (2008). The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800-2000, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shakespeare, William (1998). Henry V. [Electronic Series]. Classics of English Literature Publication Series: Pennsylvania State University.
Spenser, Edmund (1849). The Works of Edmund Spenser, with Observations on His Life & Writings. London: Printed for Henry Washbourne.
Tamplin, Ronald (1989). Seamus Heaney. Milton Keynes-Philadelphia: Open University Press.
The Book of Genesis (1998). King James Version of the Bible [Electronic Series]. Classics of English Literature Publication Series: Pennsylvania State University.
Tobin, Daniel (1999). Passage to the Center: Imagination and the Sacred in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.
Yeats, W.B. (1961). Essays and Introductions. New York: The Macmillan Company.