Anahorish And Digging | Comparative Essay

Anahorish And Digging | Comparative Essay Anahorish and Digging are two poems written by acclaimed Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, from the 1972 anthology Wintering Out and the 1966 anthology Death of a Naturalist. Anahorish was the name of the school Heaney attended (the Anglicized version of the Irish word anachgeeor uisce meaning place of cold water), and focuses on Heaney going back to visit his old school, going back in time to make sense of the present, whereas Digging is about Heaney expressing his admiration of his forefathers, and how they dug for survival, whereas he uses his pen as opposed to their spades to dig into the past of his fellow Irish people. I have chosen to compare Anahorish with Digging as I feel that Digging shares many common traits with Anahorish such as the references to land, the reminiscing of the poet, the slow, reflective language, and yet they differ, particularly context-wise. Both poems share the key theme of reminiscing/looking back in time, and the earth, and can be analysed in terms of sharing this key theme, as well as context and language.