Author: Deven Coulter

Although I had never heard of John Synge or his plays until taking Dr. Doggett’s ENGL 458: Major Authors: Yeats and Heaney, I have been listening to Blake Shelton for years. It took me by surprise when I was playing his album in entirety, to find a song titled “Playboys of the Southwestern World.” The title is derived from Synge’s play “Playboy of the Western World,” but upon listening to the song, I did not see a clear connection between the song and the play. It is fascinating to think about the allusions to art and literature that we miss in daily life, only to discover them later in order to view the piece (in this case, a song) through a different lens.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kFzRTENSC4

 

As I read the poems in Heaney’s 1975 collection, North, I recognized ritual as an important topic that appears in both Yeats and Heaney’s poetry. Just as Yeats plays were influenced by the Japanese Noh theater, and his poetry by the ritualized aristocratic manner, Heaney emphasizes the importance of the ritual of violence to Ireland’s history. The poem “The Grauballe Man” recounts “each hooded victim, slashed and dumped.” The Grauballe Man was found preserved in a bog with his throat slit. This scenario is similar to the brutality occurring between Protestants and Catholics when Heaney was writing these poems. In “Punishment,” he describes this violence as “exact and tribal, intimate revenge.” This “exact” action reminds me of Yeats’ admiration of the precision of the Irish upper class, whose repeated formalities distinguish them from the lower classes. Although I first thought of these poets as fundamentally different, particularly when it comes to style (Yeats’ structured form vs. Heaney’s free verse), I am finding that they are more similar than they appear.