Digging

E519325

"Digging" is a celebrated poem by Seamus Heaney that reflects on heritage, manual labor, and the poet’s craft through memories of his father and grandfather working the land.

All labels observed (1)

Label Occurrences
Digging canonical 1

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Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf literaryWork
poem
author Seamus Heaney NERFINISHED
centralContrast physical digging with a spade vs. metaphorical digging with a pen
closingLine I’ll dig with it.
collection Death of a Naturalist NERFINISHED
countryOfOrigin Ireland
creator Seamus Heaney NERFINISHED
firstPublicationYear 1966
firstPublishedIn Death of a Naturalist NERFINISHED
form free verse
genre lyric poetry
hasRhymeScheme irregular
isFrequentlyAnthologized true
isStudiedIn secondary education curricula
university literature courses
language English
literaryMovement contemporary Irish poetry
literaryPeriod 20th-century literature
mentionsCharacter the speaker’s father
the speaker’s grandfather
narrativePerspective first person
notableFor its evocation of rural Irish life and family memory
its meditation on the relationship between writing and manual labor
openingLine Between my finger and my thumb
publisherOfFirstBookAppearance Faber and Faber NERFINISHED
setting rural Ireland
speaker a poet persona closely associated with Seamus Heaney
subjectMatter agricultural work
art versus labor
intergenerational continuity
symbol pen
spade
theme Irish rural life
family tradition
heritage
identity
manual labor
memory
respect for physical work
the poet’s craft
usesTechnique alliteration
enjambment
imagery
metaphor
onamatopoeia
simile

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.