ENGE reaction paper #3

Name: Leung Lok Wai

SID:1155092495
Question:
According to poets such as Heaney and Yeats, why are we so violent to each other? Is
this just an inevitable part of being human? And what can we do to counteract it?

The first reason that poets thinks we are so violent to each other is because of the clash

of different beliefs. As in the poem “Easter, 1916” by Williams Butler Yeats, he had

mentioned about the unsuccessful revolutionary plan that was aimed for gaining

Ireland’s freedom from The Great Britain at that time. Of course, there are different

opinions between the British people and the Irish people, which the Irish people really

want to get their own freedom for their own country. As the British would not allow

them to get their own independency and get lose from the ruling of England, there is a

clash of ideas and beliefs between the two group of people, and they use their own way

to try fight for their beliefs, which is war in this case. The clash of beliefs in reality then

resulted in the death of soldiers and people, like what Seamus Heaney wrote, “Terraced

thousands died, …They buried us without shroud and coffin…” in his poetry “Requiem

for the Croppies”.

The second reason for that is because people sometimes did reckless decisions. In the

poem “Easter, 1916”, Yeats expressed his hatred to some foolish people in the

revolutionaries as Yeats and a large group of other people had advised them not to
import weapons from Germany for their further action of attacking British authorities,

which the weapons turned out to be intercepted by the British army. Therefore,

sometimes reckless decisions would lead to violent endings like in this example.

The poets seem do not believe that this could be inevitable and they think that they are

trying to use different ways to counteract towards those violent events. The most

effective action they believe of course is through their poetries. In the poem

“Digging” by Heaney, he described how good is his father and grandfather dig for

potatoes and turfs, and in the last stance of the poem, he said,” Between my finger and

my thumb, the squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.”, which shows that Heaney’s

determination of stand for his ideas and try to “dig” for true beliefs just like how good

was his father and grandfather did in digging. By implanting those ideas and beliefs

into the poems, those ideas can be transferred to others and convince others to agree

with the poets, which may be able to reduce the chances of having wars due to idea

conflicts. In Heaney and Yeats’s case, it will be the independence and freedom of

Ireland. In their few poems, we can see that both of them do support Ireland to leave

the ruling England and achieve real liberation for Ireland.