Violence and Silence in Seamus Heaney's "Mycenae Lookout"

Violence and Silence in Seamus Heaney's "Mycenae Lookout"

Seamus Heaney declares, in "Mycenae Lookout," that there is "No such thing / as innocent / bystanding."¹ The poem appears at the center of The Spirit Level (1996) and comprises a sequence of five poems. It is a work that interrogates both how the violence of society affects the individual, and how violence compels connivance in a conspiracy of silence. Heaney suggests that only by returning to a personal mythology can one be purged of one's crimes and yet acknowledges purgation is not enough. To move forward, one must also declare the truth of the sins of the individual and the society.

Heaney wrote "Mycenae Lookout" in direct reaction to the politics of Northern Ireland—in particular, the IRA ceasefire that began on August 31, 1994; he began the poem the following October.² The ceasefire, he wrote, "was a genuine visitation, the lark sang and the light ascended." Heaney says, in describing that time, that

Everything got a little better and yet instead of being able to bask in the turn of events, I found myself getting angrier and angrier at the waste of lives and friendships and possibilities in the years that had preceded it.³

The ceasefire changed the political landscape of Northern Ireland and resulted in profound changes in day-to-day life. The level of violence dropped dramatically: in 1993, 84 persons died of sectarian violence; 476 shootings occurred, and 289 bombs were planted. In contrast, in 1995, nine died, 50 shootings occurred, and only two bombs were planted.⁴ The IRA ended the ceasefire in February, 1996, with the bombing at Canary Wharf in London that killed two; however, the 1994 ceasefire did point the way to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.⁵

Sensing that he was freed from the constraints of what he commonly calls "the tribe," Heaney describes himself in "Tollund" (written in September, 1994) as "alive and sinning, / Ourselves again, free-willed again, not bad."⁶ Heaney had proven remarkably circumspect when writing about the political realities of his homeland, refusing to write anything that could be considered inflammatory or even remotely propagandistic—a decision castigated by such critics as Ciaran Carson and David Lloyd. Neil Corcoran describes Heaney as a poet who has "been drawn to commentary on, and has withdrawn from propagandistic involvement in, a lengthy, ongoing, local internecine war."⁷ However, in The Spirit Level, Heaney felt not just the freedom to express himself, but also a compulsion to make himself heard. Such poems such as "Weighing In" and "The Flight Path" speak out about the need to speak out. "The Flight Path" includes a confrontation between Heaney and a nationalist acquaintance:

'When, for fuck's sake, are you going to write
Something for us?' 'If I do write something,
Whatever it is, I'll be writing for myself.'

(SL 29)

In "Mycenae Lookout," Heaney also chooses to write for himself, with a meditation that weighs in on Ireland and its violence.

Heaney is not a political poet except in the ancient Greek meaning of "politics"—one who is "interested in the polis," as Heaney says of Yeats. Heaney notes, "Yeats isn't a factional political poet, even if he does represent a definite sector of Irish society and culture. . . . But the whole effort of the imagining is toward inclusiveness. Prefiguring a future."⁸ Heaney disclaims any political message in the "Mycanae Lookout":

I suppose what I want to emphasize is that there was no real communiqué factor at work in the poems, there was the excitement of utterance, the writing was after and into something other than commentary. It was a surge-up through language. I was buoyed by the doing rather than relaying any message.⁹

Sarah Broom records that at a reading of the poem in 1998, Heaney stated the poem reflected "his sudden recognition, after the 1994 ceasefire, of the degree to [End...