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‘Personal Helicon’ is a poem by Seamus Heaney that expresses his poetical growth and inspiration. It’s simplicity of structure and steady rhythm help form a childlike quality at first, which soon develops into a more mature verse. In order to validate these claims this essay will critically analyse Heaney’s use of certain poetic devices and particular style.

Firstly, let us begin to dissect the title – ‘Personal Helicon’. ‘Personal’ implies something belongs to you; it is your own property. And ‘Helicon’ is the name of a mountain in Boeotia, Greece – Mount Helicon – which is said to be sacred to Muses (poets and artists) and be their source of inspiration. It is also the source of a spring called Hippocrene; it is in this spring that Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection. This legend has some value in the poem; as Heaney describes himself as slowly seeing his reflection appear in the bottom of the well – which is a metaphor for his poetic growth. And finally he states that he regards the well/poetry as the only way in which he may see himself clearly (just as Narcissus could not pull himself away from the spring’s reflection):

''‘To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring / Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme / To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.’'' [lines 18-20].

The title gives us a hint of what Heaney is about to say; the content, whatever it may be, would be a depiction of his source of poetic inspiration – it is his Mount Helicon, his ‘Personal Helicon’. Looking at the actual lines and how they are punctuated and situated, we notice that Heaney uses these aspects to suggest the way the poem must be read. The use of enjambment (for example: ‘Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme’ [line 19]) helps create a flow in the poem that would mimic how one thinks. Just as when one thinks of something, and the next thought comes straight away, without any hesitation; so are the lines of the poem, each line that contains enjambment is a run on thought. The enjambment causes the poem to be read in the same way that the poet thought of it, before it was written down. The punctuation and situation of lines does the same, such as in these verses;

''‘I savoured the rich crash when a bucket / Plummeted down at the end of the rope. / So deep you saw no reflection in it.’'' [lines 6-8]

These lines also mimic a thought process, but in an entirely different way. Just as our thoughts often run on from one to the next, they are just as often broken and delayed. Here we see the latter of these being depicted; breaking up the first sentence, in the piece above, creates the same feeling as a broken thought. And the incomplete sentence after it hints that it may well have been a delayed thought – an afterthought. This might be how Heaney was thinking when he was both looking at the image of wells, and writing the poem. Lastly it would be wise to note that the 4th and 5th stanza are the most punctuated of all the stanzas and hold the only two lines that create true enjambment (‘Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme’ [line 19: my underlining] and ‘With a clean new music in it. And one’ [line 14: my underlining]). This represents how Heaney is coming to a poetical maturity in these last two quartets; although his thought still run on and break oddly, they are now more structured – which is enforced by the poems general layout.

The poem is made up of five quartets, of which every second verse rhymes (abab rhyme scheme, where the first four stanzas have a majority of a consonant rhyme). However, the last stanza has a textbook rhyme scheme, as every alternate line creates a pure rhyme (‘slime’ [line 17]; ‘rhyme’ [line 19] and ‘spring’ [line 18]; ‘echoing’ [line 20]). Heaney uses this structure to slowly, throughout the poem, create a sense of movement and build to a climax in the final quartet. The final quartet is also led up to by a dramatic break in the flow of the line, through the movement of ‘a clean new music’ [line 14] to ‘a rat [slapping]’ [line 16]. This sudden break enhances the effect that what follows is superbly climatic and final. Looking back to the consonant rhymes, (‘top’ [line 5]; ‘rope’ [line 7] and ‘one’ [line 14]; ‘reflection’ [line 16], etcetera) they stress a childlike quality in the first four stanzas, however, in the last stanza the narrator/author has matured into a metaphorical adulthood (in ‘Personal Helicon’ it seems that the narrator and author are one; as Heaney is describing his journey of poetical growth and inspiration).

This growth is most obviously apparent in the way that Heaney leads us through the time-line of the poem. In the 1st stanza he tells us, ‘As a child’ [line 1] he loved wells, then in the 5th stanza he says, ‘Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,’ [line 17: my underlining]. First I will note that he is comparing his literal past to his literal present, and secondly note that he is comparing his metaphorical childhood to such adulthood (not by age, but poetic maturity). This is perhaps better explained by deciphering Heaney’s imagery. The development, where Heaney compares his childhood memories of staring into wells to his poetic growth, is also evident in his use of language and strong imagery. Stanza 1 is a mere straight-forward description of wells with no/hardly any underlying meaning, but in stanza 2 he begins to expect a reflection of himself (‘So deep you saw no reflection in it’ [line 8]) – he hopes to see something philosophically deeper than just the actual well itself. In stanza 3 he begins to see this reflection that he so desired earlier (‘A white face hovered over the bottom’ [line 12]) but it is blurry and incomprehensible. It helps here to note that Stanza 3 is written in the second person (‘When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch’ [line 11: my underlining]), whereas all the others are written in first person (besides the last line of stanza 2, ‘So deep you saw no reflection in it.’ [line 8: my underlining], which might be seen as an introduction into the 3rd stanza). This signifies Heaney’s separation from childhood, and his step into adulthood (a metaphor for the growing poet inside him) – it also might signify that Heaney regards himself as without an identity, and so refers to himself as ‘you’ instead of ‘I’. Then, in stanza 4, he finally breaks through and reflects his own experiences with the image and memory of wells (he relives a good memory ‘…with a clean new music in it’ [line 14], but suddenly he is reminded of a bad feeling as ‘a rat slapped across [his] reflection’ [line 16]). Then, in stanza 5 he has reached a higher level of maturity, as he concludes that he now rhymes ‘[t]o see [himself], to set the darkness echoing’ [line 20]. He now realises that he sees the world and himself clearer through poetry, and tries to portray the poetic root of himself. He no longer only looks at a well for the image or to relive a fond childhood memory, but to see something behind it, and what it stands for.

In conclusion, we may say that Heaney is – instead of describing well’s – describing his journey of poetry writing and his source of inspiration. To this we might say Heaney is suggesting that he is the source of his own inspiration, he looks into himself to write poems, analysing every fragment of his soul – just as he looked into the wells as a child, constantly observing new details.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ‘Personal Helicon’ – for Michael Longley (by Seamus Heaney)

Written by: Morsu'col - A Coal Biter Morsu&#39;col (talk) 21:41, 18 March 2012 (UTC)