Resonant forms, architecture in the poetry of Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott

grantor: University of TorontoArchitectural images and metaphors frequently appear in the poetry and poetics of Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott. Architecture, including the vernacular, acts as a means by which both Heaney and Walcott locate their poetry in place. In other, often enigmatic ways, the use of architectural and spatial tropes provide the dynamic terms for exploring temporal issues. This thesis investigates the imaginative process by which each poet reads various examples of architecture in Ireland, the West Indies, and elsewhere. Chapter one explores the poetics of Heaney and Walcott in relation to architecture and creates the basis for a detailed analysis of the poetry. Form emerges as a main concern. They each develop architectural metaphors in their discourse regarding other poets and matters of craft, technique, and voice, but also, in an extended fashion, use it to address broader cultural issues such as language. In chapter two, which traces the notion of 'home' in the poetry, an awareness of architecture as an expressive entity capable of suggesting an almost organic inner life emerges. On occasion, they also reveal a deep ambivalence toward built structures. Chapter three examines their handling of the estate house in the light of traditional representations, leading to a focus on other architectural sites which carry strong historical resonances for each poet. The final chapter continues this inquiry in relation to the presiding notion of memory, the genre of elegy, homage, and the idea of mimetic 'poetic architecture.' Spatial imagery becomes crucially linked with remembrance. In conclusion, architecture in the writing of Heaney and Walcott does not consist merely of static forms, but is responsive to the animating forces of poetic language, continually evoking the fluidity of time.Ph.D