Hermathena, Trinity College Dublin Published: Number 161, 1998, pp.53 6!.

The Place of writing: P"#C$, P%$T&', P%"(T(C) (N T*$ +&(T(N, %)$#./) *$#N$' At the beginning of The Cure at Troy, Seamus Heaneys translation of Sophocless Philoctetes, the chorus speaks on the function of poetry in the midst of political and cultural turmoil:
Poetry Allowed the god to speak. It was the oice !f reality and "ustice. #he oice of Hercules #hat Philoctetes is going to ha e to hear $hen the stone cracks open and the la a flows. %The Cure at Troy, &'

It is the contention of this essay that Heaneys use of classical imagery in his poetry ser es to assert the oice of (reality and "ustice in the middle of a time when (the stone cracks open and la a flows. #he imagery of stones and la a in this e)tract is, in my opinion thematic of a central concern in Heaneys work, namely the politics of place and culture in *orthern Ireland. Attachment to place is a central trope of politics in Ireland, and especially in contemporary *orthern Ireland. #he territorial imperati e is a ma"or factor in much of the iolence with which our history is riddled. Indeed, in +uly and August of each year, that same possessi e notion of place is the cause of tension and iolence in *orthern Ireland, the names of -ar aghy .oad and /rumcree ha e been engra ed on the consciousness of the world during +uly 0112 as signifiers of a iolent linguistic attachment to place. #he ideology of both *ationalist and 3nionist traditions has politicised the land which they share by linguistic marks of possession. Paul de 4an has termed this process of politicisation of place, of ethnic attachment to the land, (aesthetic ideology, and #erry 5agleton has gi en a concise definition of it: 0

aesthetic ideology in ol es a phenomenalist reduction of the linguistic to the sensually empirical, a confusing of mind and world, sign and thing, cognition and percept, which is consecrated in the Hegelian symbol and resisted by 6ants rigorous demarcation of aesthetic "udgement from the cogniti e, ethical and political realms. Such aesthetic ideology, by repressing the contingent, aporetic relation which holds between the spheres of language and the real, naturali7es or phenomenali7es the former, and is thus in danger of con erting the accidents of meaning to organic natural process in the characteristic manner of ideological thought.

%The Ideology of the Aesthetic, 08' #his ideology of place, by introducing emoti e aesthetic criteria into disputes, alidates what +ohn 4ontague has termed (the omit surge 9 of race hatred % The Rough Field, :;'. $hen the aesthetic is prioritised within the political realm, and emoti e issues of culture and ideology are foregrounded, then reason and debate ha e little chance of success. #he writer can then either ascribe to this ideology of place, becoming part of the (holmgang of *orthern Ireland where, as Heaney noted:
two berserks club each other to death <or honours sake, grie ed in a bog, and sinking, %North, =8'

or can take a different route. In an essay appropriately entitled The Place of Writing, Heaney makes the point that (the poetic imagination in its strongest manifestation imposes its ision upon a place rather than accepts a ision from it%&8', and goes on to add that (we are more and more aware of writing as a place in itself, a destination in art arri ed at by way of art. %01' In terms of The Cure at Troy, the writer can either become capti ated by cracking (stones and flowing (la a, or he can listen for the ( oice of Hercules. It is the contention of this paper that for Heaney, the oice of Hercules stands for a broader concept of place, one that imposes a ision of (reality and "ustice on the ideology of place in *orthern Ireland, and I will e)amine some passages from Heaneys writing to e)plore this iewpoint.

&

#he first passage I would like to focus on comes from the beginning of Preoccupations. Here Heaney is describing his own home place and he does so in terms which foreground the place of classical thinking in his aesthetic. #he passage that will be analy7ed here is taken from the opening of (Mossbawn :
I would begin with the -reek word, omphalos, meaning the na el, and hence the stone that marked the centre of the world, and repeat it, omphalos, omphalos, omphalos, until its blunt and falling music becomes the music of somebody pumping water at the pump outside our back door. It is >o. /erry in the early 01:8s. #he American bombers groan towards the aerodrome at #oomebridge, the American troops manoeu re in the fields along the road, but all of that great historical action does not disturb the rhythms of the yard. #here the pump stands, a slender, iron idol, snouted, helmeted, dressed down with a sweeping handle, painted a dark green and set on a concrete plinth, marking the centre of another world. %Preoccupations, 0=?0@'

#his passage opens with the classical association of the word omphalos. Heaney begins with the (word which means the (na el, and hence the centre of the world, and only then points to the pump, on its (concrete plinth which marks (the centre of another world. #he classical reference is used here, I would suggest, as part of a rhetorical chain of imagery which attempts to pose an alternati e to the ( holmgang of aesthetic ideology in *orthern Ireland. Ay in oking the centre of the classical world, or more accurately, the word omphalos, Heaney is pointing towards a point of ad"udication in terms of the present. Ay putting forth the idea of different worlds, the passage sets in motion an interaction which will allow Heaney to impose a ision on the place, to interrogate the gi ens of aesthetic ideology, and to create a place of writing where reason and language might help, rather than hinder the process of change, and facilitate the dictum that (art can outface history %Preoccupations, 11'. Here, the oice %and one thinks of (the oice of Hercules', as symbolic of the imagination of the writer, fuses the psychical centre of Heaneys childhood world with a psychical centre of an imaginati e world, the metaphorical soil of ancient -reece, the cradle of $estern ci ili7ation, aesthetics and politics. In a real sense, Heaney is grounding himself as part of this world, as part of the classical world where the great B

emancipatory ideals of "ustice were first hammered out. He is looking for a point of reference from where he can locate *orthern Ireland, and its problems, within the spatial and temporal categories of a broader world iew. >lassical tropes gi e him this iewpoint as they are spatially and temporally distanced from the (ruminant ground of *orthern Ireland. !ne could associate this process with the conceptual scheme of Spino7a, who saw that e ents could be iewed from the perspecti e of a particular culture sub specie durationis or from the perspecti e of eternity sub specie aeternitatis. #he latter perspecti e is, of course, impossible, but it is seen by Spino7a as a regulati e notion by which we can be guided. Ay creating this dual ision for 4ossbawn, Heaney is, through classical imagery, seeking a Cuasi?eternal perspecti e on his own place. #his synthesis bears fruit in !inship, in his olume North, where the modern and ancient, the Irish and the classical again coalesce imaginati ely. #his poem attempts to grant the intensity of racial dri es, and also to seek a "uridical warrant outside of the hermeneutic circle of those dri es. Here, the aesthetic is being brought under the "urisdiction of classical alues, in the shape of the apostrophised #acitus. In this poem, the racial and ethnic dri es which power nationalistic identification with the land are gi en e)pression. #he land, which allows him to (step through origins is imagined as ali e:
kinned by hieroglyphic peat on a spreadfield to the strangled ictim... ...I lo e this turf?face... ...each bank a gallows drop, each open pool the unstopped mouth of an urn, a moon?drinker. %North, :8?:0'

#he third section of !inship has the (I of the poem penetrating the land in a phallic manner, an image redolent of a Cuasi?se)ual relationship with the land:
I found a turf?spade hidden under bracken, laid flat, and o ergrown with a green fog. As I raised it the soft lips of the growth muttered and split, a tawny rut opening at my feet like a shed skin, the shaft wettish as I sank it upright... ...I stand at the edge of centuries facing a goddess. %North, :&'

Here, the land is imaged as ali e, female, se)ually acti e in terms of the (I of the poem D and gi en the nationalist background of the author, the fact that the implement that penetrates the land is o ergrown (with a green fog is hardly accidental. #his penetration of the land gi es birth, or rather rebirth to (a goddess, and the oice of the poem, like that of the opening of Mossbawn, seems to be allowing itself to come under the spell of place, telling us that:
I grew out of all this like a weeping willow inclined to the appetites of gra ity. %North, :B'

Here, the power of aesthetic ideology is imaged in the almost gra itational pull of the (I towards the land, and the simile of the weeping willow, which grows out of the earth, before inclining back towards it. #he rationality of the (I seems to ha e been diminished under the gra itational pull of aesthetic ideology. #he persuasi e power of such an aesthetic ideology is granted in this fine poem, reminding us of Heaneys comment in Preoccupations:
At one minute you are drawn to the old orte) of racial and religious instinct, at another time you seek the mean of humane lo e and reason. %Preoccupations, B:'

#he final section of !inship both grants the intensity of the aesthetic relationship with place, an intensity that seems to alorise a type of necessary (slaughter, and brings such practices under e)ternal "udgement, the (mean of (reason. It attempts to break the hermeneutic circle of place, in a manner similar to that of the Mossbawn piece, by an introduction of something to this particular circle both temporally and spatially. #his classical referent, #acitus, seems to point towards a time and place where disputes were settled differently. In the middle of the bloodshed and erbs of iolence D (slaughter and (sha"e D we note the two erbs associated with #acitus and the legions D (obser"e, and (report.
And you, #acitus, obser e how I make my gro e on an old crannog piled by the fearful dead: a desolate peace. !ur mother ground is sour with the blood of her faithful, they lie gargling in her sacred heart

as the legions stare from the ramparts. >ome back to this (island of the ocean where nothing will suffice. .ead the inhumed faces of casualty and ictim, report us fairly, how we slaughter for the common good and sha e the heads of the notorious, how the goddess swallows our lo e and terror. %North, :;'

#here is a different le el of discourse being suggested by the address of these lines to #acitus, and by the presence of the legions as a type of ci ilised audience to these barbaric rites. #he suasi e power of the earlier sections of the poem, with their intense relationship to the place, is lessened due to the framing de ice of the inclusion of a passi e watcher, with whom the (I of the poem also has a #inship D that of a ci ilised user of language, and recorder of customs and practices. #he in"unctions to (obser e and (report...fairly bring the rites of kinship under a different discursi e regime. #acitus stands in synecdoche for .ome, for the pa$ Romana, for the ci ili7ing faith in art (aere perennius %already Cuoted in Whate"er %ou &ay' &ay Nothing' North, ;1'. #he discourse associated with him embodies these ci ilised and rational alues D (obser e...read...report us fairly, as #acitus did in the Agricola and the (ermania. It is the discourse of science, of "ustice, of ob"ecti ity. It symboli7es the perspecti e of eternity, sub specie aeternitatis. It is the discourse of the <orum, where laws were framed and disputes settled. Ay e)tension, and by analogy with the omphalos of the Mossbawn passage, it is the discourse of the Athenians who built their supreme court =

on 4ount Areopagos where "ustice was dealt in the midst of a world where barbarism and iolence, similar to that discussed in the rest of this poem, was rife. #he ery fact that these lines are addressed to a li ing #acitus, in the present tense, makes it clear that the lines are symbolic. SeCuential time and place cohere, as the classical figure symboli7es a different perspecti e, sub specie aeternitatis, a different use of language to that of terror and death. #he classical references allow for the symboli7ation of a different politics of place, they allow the poet to proffer a place of writing where alues of reason and critiCue hold sway o er the (holmgang. #he Hellenic enlightenment gestures towards a different way of dealing with disputes o er territory. !f course, feuds and battles still continued in the classical age, but there was in place an alternati e paradigm D Heaneys (mean of humane lo e and reason D which offered another option to the ( orte) of racial hatred. It is this difference of language which is central to Heaneys interrogation of the aesthetic ideology that per ades nationalist consciousness. #he attractions of a Cuasi? sacral relationship to land are granted their fullest intensity in !inship, but the placing of this (world in "u)taposition with the (world of #acitus ser es to place both iews in an economy wherein they can interrogate each other. #he presence of #acitus and the legions %a historical anachronism as the .omans ne er coloni7ed Ireland' does not stop the (slaughter 9 for the common good, what it does is present a different world? iew which may contain the iolence, or at least offer a different perspecti e on these rites of kinship "ust as the omphalos presents a different conception of place. #he paradigm for such a containment of isceral forces, as noted by >onor >ruise !Arien, is of course the )resteia by Aeschylus. #he furies are contained, by the -oddess Athena, as she attempts to break the cycle of blood feuds. #hey are gi en a special place within the temple, but their engeful nature remains the same. #hey are reminded of a higher power than theirs %)n the *"e of the Millennium, 1&?1B'. Art, by creating a distancing perspecti e, offers some hope of containment of the iolence inherent in aesthetic ideology by offering other aesthetic images which posit a different, more reasoned relationship with place. Such a relationship must be e)pressed in poetic terms because the central trope of aesthetic ideology, the @

personification of place, or the gi ing of face to a land % prosopopoeia', is an essentially poetic term. #he e)pression of names of places as part of comple) cultural, religious and racial codes is a literary trope, with dangerous o ertones when it o ersteps the line of demarcation between literature and politics, because when feeling and emotion enter the political realm, then ata isms do not lurk far beneath the surface: (the goddess swallows 9 our lo e and terror. #he placing of the classical referents within this chain of aesthetic ideology, as seen in !inship, ser es the same function as the "u)taposition of the omphalos and the pump in Mossbawn, namely the postulation of a new politics of place wherein the place of writing will be to impose different isions of the relationship between people and place, using the symbolic discourse through which aesthetic ideology has come into being. Heaney is attempting a process of isualising the same e ent through two different perspecti es. #he pump, in Mossbawn is part of a local en ironment, a central place in a parochial world, but it is also, due to the in ocation of the -reek word omphalos, a pointer towards another world iew. #he perspecti e of the (I of !inship, deeply implicated in the aesthetic ideology of place %(I stand at the edge of centuries 9 facing a goddess', who sees the land as intimately connected with the language of his tribe %(this is the owel of earth 9 dreaming its root' is framed within the perspecti e of the eye of #acitus and the legions %(obser e...stare...read...report'. I would argue that the classical tropes in these two pieces of writing by Heaney ser e to represent a distancing perspecti e, sub specie aeternitatis, on aesthetic ideology. Such an outside perspecti e is necessary to offer a critiCue of the pieties of *ationalism and 3nionism alike, especially when these pieties are generally gi en symbolic and iconic representation, as opposed to rational lines of argument. #he almost se)ual relationship between self and place posited in !inship gestures towards the possessi e nature of this ideology. #o feel that one is (rooted in a piece of land, and that therefore no other tradition has any right to li e, or e en march there is to partake of this type of organicist ideology, and if there is no outside perspecti e to ask ($hy is this soE Support your position with argument $here is your e idenceE then the ideology becomes self?perpetuating, and any chance of a more rational or 1

enlightened political approach is denied. $ithout this perspecti e, the organicist notion of a special relationship between race and land has closure in terms of a politics of place in literature. #his framing of the isceral by the rational, already noted in !inship, is further e)plored in the two framing poems of Part 0 of North, Antaeus and +ercules and Antaeus. !ne stan7a from Antaeus, in North' can be read as a paradigm of this organicist aesthetic ideology as it attempts to gi e oice to these territorial pieties and possessi e dri es, without any outside perspecti e:
/own here in my ca e -irdered with root and rock I am cradled in the dark that wombed me And nurtured in e ery artery Fike a small hillock. %North, 0&'

Here, the oice of the poem is imagined, through simile, as being part of the land. Such is the strength of the identification that the rhetorical strategy that is used is a type of in erted personification. #he (I is stripped of the attributes of humanity, and instead becomes one with the land itself, the relationship with the earth is, in fact, the constituti e factor in the sub"ecti ity of Antaeus. #he fact that the land appears, symbolically, to represent his mother further strengthens this sub,ect-land-language ne)us. #his pattern of imagery is sustained throughout the stan7a, in a leitmotif of rebirth, a leitmotif which foregrounds the .omantic legacy of a sentient nature, to which access is gained by the language of poetry. #he womb?like (ca e is the place where Antaeus, son of (., the earth mother, is (cradled in the dark, and where he is (nurtured. Here, the imagery takes on symbolic o ertones. +ust as Antaeus is the son of the earth, so the indi idual who is the focus of aesthetic ideology is a son, or daughter of a particular piece of earth, and likewise draws strength from this personified piece of land. Here, the writer seems to be seduced by the place, rather than imposing his ision on the place. In the discourse of 08

Antaeus, there is no hint of escaping the seducti e power of the land. #his will not come until the mention of Hercules, in the companion poem, +ercules and Antaeus, who again symbolises the power of a different perspecti e to weaken the territorial imperati es of the land. Here, the debate between a politics which takes its ision from place and its people, and one which imposes a more rational ision upon place and its people, is symboli7ed in terms of a wrestling match, a grappling where different faculties struggle. Here, Hercules:
...has the measure of resistance and black powers feeding off the territory. %North, ;&'

He is (sky?born, and hence symbolic of that more rational perspecti e, and through his action in the poem, Antaeus is (weaned at last from:
...the cradling dark, the ri er? eins, the secret gullies of his strength, the hatching grounds of ca e and souterrain, %North, ;&?;B'

and becomes (a sleeping giant 9 pap for the dispossessed. Here, Hercules breaks the organic relationship between nati e and place, his, as The Cure at Troy e)plained (is the oice 9 of reality and "ustice. #he twin metaphors for this relationship ha e been the se)ual penetration , gi ing rise to rebirth, of !inship, and the nursing child, feeding off the earth mother, (. in Antaeus. *ow, both bonds are se ered, though Antaeus, symbol of aesthetic ideology is not completely anCuished. Fike the furies in the )resteia, he is brought under some kind of containment, and that containment is enacted through that rational perspecti e which has been an ongoing trope in our

00

readings. #his is made e)plicit in +ercules and Antaeus, where it is (intelligence that causes the se ering of the bond between nati e and place:
Antaeus, the mould?hugger, is weaned at last: a fall was a renewal but now he is raised upD the challengers intelligence is a spur of light, a blue prong graiping him out of his element into a dream of loss and origins. %North, ;&'

Here, it is the intelligence, the application of reason and thought to the relationship between people and place, that effects the metamorphosis of that relationship from organic bodily dependence, an almost umbilical connection, to that of thought, debate and the imagery of (light. and (intelligence. #he final piece of Heaneys writing that I wish to consider in this conte)t is Personal +elicon, the final poem in /eath of a Naturalist. +ust as his personal iew of Mossbawn pri ileged the classical notion of the omphalos, so his personal +elicon will pri ilege classical sources as his personal 4use. <rom within the place where he writes, the poet will create a place of writing, where ideas sub specie aeternitatis can offer a more ob"ecti e line of ision on those which are sub specie durationis. #he different perspecti e sub"ects the unthinking dependencies of aesthetic ideology to a critiCue which posits a politics based on reason

P5.S!*AF H5FI>!*

0&

As a child, they could not keep me from wells And old pumps with buckets and windlasses. I lo ed the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells !f waterweed, fungus and dank moss. !ne, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top. I sa oured the rich crash when a bucket Plummeted down at the end of a rope. So deep you saw no reflection in it. A shallow one under a dry stone ditch <ructified like any aCuarium. $hen you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch A white face ho ered o er the bottom. !thers had echoes, ga e back your own call $ith a clean new music in it. And one $as scaresome for there, out of ferns and tall <o)glo es, a rat slapped across my reflection. *ow, to pry into roots, to finger slime, #o stare big?eyed *arcissus, into some spring Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme #o see myself, to set the darkness echoing. %/eath of a Naturalist , ;='

At first, we seem to ha e come full circle, back to Mossbawn, with a piece of writing referring to the poets early home, and to water imagery. Howe er, the title of Heaneys poem immediately brings what .oland Aarthes would term a cultural code to bear on our reading of the poem. #he complete te)t is framed by two proper nouns: (+elicon in the title, and (*arcissus in the final stan7a. #hese proper nouns, both of -reek deri ation, locate the poem in the abstract realm of myth, as opposed to the seemingly concrete world of Heaneys childhood. In other words, they place the 0B

recounting of early e)perience, sub specie durationis, within a framing chain of classical imagery which represents the more detached iew, sub specie aeternitatis. Hence, the ery title of the poem undercuts any literal reading in terms of recalled referentiality and conscious intentionality. 4ichael Parker relates the etymological deri ation of 0+elicon :
Helicon was a mountain in Aoeotia, sacred to the 4uses. <rom it two fountains flowed, the Hippocrene and the Aganippe, and those who drank from their waters were inspired with the gift of poetry. %&eamus +eaney1 The Ma#ing of the Poet, =:'

#he myth of *arcissus and 5cho is well known, 5cho was punished by +uno for talking too much by being denied all speech, e)cept the power to repeat the final word of a sentence. Ha ing fallen in lo e with *arcissus, but being unable to communicate with him, she e entually faded away into rock, and all that was left of her was her oice, still ha ing the last word. *arcissus, seeing his own reflection in the waters of a fountain, immediately fell in lo e with it. At e ery attempt to make physical contact, the reflection disappeared, when *arcissus drew back, the reflection returned. He e entually faded away and died. #hese two myths form a cultural ne)us through which the poem may be read. #he remembered child in the poem lo es the (echoes that will transform his (call and then return it with (clean new music. #he use of (echoes, in a te)t which foregrounds the myths of *arcissus and +elicon, points the common noun to its mythological antecedent, 5cho. 5cho, doomed to repeat only the final words spoken by an other, is a locus classicus of aesthetic ideology in that she e)ists within the confines of a place, and can only repeat the final sound of a speaker. As the oice of place, her ocabulary is strictly limited, it is monologic, and can impose no ision on the place. *arcissus suffers the same fate, all he can see is his reflection, there is no widening of perspecti e, there is no outside to the relationship. Aoth figures are seen as ictims of an o er?determined relationship with place. In political terms both the *ationalist and 3nionist traditions are locked in a similar time?bound perspecti e, sub specie durationis, which gi es rise to the conflict seen at /rumcree during the Summer of 0112. 0:

#he e)ternal perspecti e, sub specie aeternitatis, in this poem, is the mature self of the poet, who is capable of seeing his earlier self at a distance, both temporally and culturally D the (child who could not be kept from wells could hardly ha e known about *arcissus and 5cho. In terms of place, the poet sees that the two reflections of place symbolised by *arcissus and 5cho, are flawed and one dimensional. 5chos auditory repetition of the end of messages is far too limiting a concept for a personal poetic credo, as this poem surely is. $hat Heaney wants is a reflection which interacts with its medium and therefore brings about a change in both poet and attitude to place. $hile the pump in 4ossbawn brought forth water, and some of the wells in Personal +elicon bring forth (a rich crash when a bucket (plummeted down, the sound he alues comes from other wells which:
...had echoes, ga e back your own call with a clean new music in it. %/eath of a Naturalist , ;='

#his (clean new music has the same effect as the sound of the word ( omphalos in Mossbawn, and the in ocation of #acitus in !inship D it brings about a de elopment in terms of perception of place. #he perception of place is modified by the oice, "ust as the oice is modified by the perception of place. #here is a dialogue, e en something of a dialectic between the two. #he imagery of the echo as something new, like the image of #acitus in Ireland, cannot be literally true, in the language of the poem, the lessons of the classics D myth, history, politics, debate D are ital if an enlightened approach, due to a distancing of perspecti e, is to be taken with respect to place, if, in short, the ( oice of place is to be silenced D because, when all is said and done, aesthetic ideology in ol es a transference and a pro"ection into insentient molecules of attitudes and ata isms from the race or tradition in Cuestion. A critiCue of such ideology makes this clear, for as Heaney notes in The Cure at Troy:
And thats the borderline that poetry !perates on too, always in between $hat you would like to happen and what will D $hether you like it or not.

0;

%The Cure at Troy, &'

At the le el of isual reflection, *arcissus would also seem to be another locus classicus of the dri e of aesthetic ideology, as when he looks at place, in this case water, all he sees is himself. He is captated by a ision of place and in no sense looks for a different perspecti e, a new ision. Here, Heaney refuses to be part of such a iew of place, and looks for a blend of auditory and isual perspecti e which will not take images passi ely from the (darkness %symbolic of the ata isms so aptly described in !inship', but rather will impose a new ision on the politics of place, will disturb and critiCue these dark forces of racial hatred, and gi e him a new sense of self, a self that is kinned to the norms of #acitus and classical thought. #he waters that flow from the +ippocrene and the Aganippe will inspire a writing that will impose a rational ision upon the politics of place, and will not adhere to the suasi e power of the ideology of place:
*ow, to pry into roots, to finger slime, #o stare big?eyed narcissus, into some spring Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme #o see myself, to set the darkness echoing. %/eath of a Naturalist , ;='

It is this clarity of ision that connects the e)amples offered in this essay. #he omphalos, #acitus, Hercules and +elicon function as images of the rational critiCue which, sub specie aeternitatis, will bring the ( oice of reality and "ustice, the (mean of a humane lo e and reason to bare on the dark ata isms of the pull of place. #he politics of place espoused by this classical chain of imagery makes the place of writing the place of thought and reason. It imposes this rational ision on place. #he place of writing then, is to lead the intellect from the depths of the (sour bog of !inship and the (slime of Personal +elicon, to the heights of the hill of Areopagus where through reason and debate, as in the )resteia, the furies of aesthetic ideology can be contained.

02

0(0"(%,&#P*'
Aarthes, .oland &234 #ranslated by .ichard 4iller. %Fondon: +onathan >ape, 01=;'. Aullfinch, #homas, 5ullfinch s Mythology1 (The Age of Fable4 <orward by .obert -ra es. %>hicago: /oubleday, 012@'. Aernhart, >larence F. %ed.' %01=&' The World 5oo# /ictionary4 #wo Golumes. >hicago: /oubleday. de 4an, Paul, The Resistance to Theory4 Theory and +istory of 6iterature' 7olume 88. %4inneapolis: 3ni ersity of 4innesota Press, 01@2'. 5agleton, #erry %0118' The Ideology of the Aesthetic. !)ford: Aasil Alackwell. Heaney, Seamus, North %01=;'. Fondon: <aber. Heaney, Seamus, Preoccupations1 &elected Prose 9:;<-9:=< %01@8'. Fondon: <aber. Heaney, Seamus, /eath of a Naturalist %Fondon: <aber, 0122' Heaney, Seamus, The Place of Writing %-eorgia: Scholars Press, 01@1'. Heaney, Seamus, The Cure at Troy %Fondon: <aber, 0118' 4ontague, +ohn, The Rough Field %/ublin: /olman Press, 01=&'. *orris, >hristopher, Paul de Man1 /econstruction and the Criti>ue of Aesthetic Ideology %Fondon: .outledge, 01@@'. *orris, >hristopher, &pino?a and the origins of Critical Theory %!)ford: Aasil Alackwell, 0110'. !Arien, >onor >ruise, )n the *"e of the Millennium %*ew Hork: <ree press, 011:'. Parker, 4ichael, &eamus +eaney1 (The Ma#ing of a Poet. %/ublin: -ill and 4acmillan. 011B' #acitus, The Agricola and the (ermania #ranslated by H. 4attingly, translation re ised by S.A. Handford %Harmondsworth: Penguin >lassics, 01=8'

0=