Commentary on Digging

Digging by Seamus Heaney is a reflection on the poets familys agrarian history and how
he has differed from them in that regard. The vivid use of imagery throughout the poem adds
realism to the memories the poet recalls and conveys the fondness with which the poet
remembers his days watching his paternal relations labouring in the fields. Digging, the
namesake of the poem, is a key motif in this free verse poem with a haphazard rhyming
scheme. Through literary techniques and intensive imagery that appeal to all of the senses bar
taste, Heaney is able to immerse the reader in the same sense of nostalgia that he experiences.
As a result of this, the reader is able to more readily connect with Heaneys search for self-
identity.
Digging is written in free verse, yet has an irregular rhyme scheme and consists of eight
stanzas. The stanzas are arranged according to transitions in the subject matter. The poem is
written through the eyes of the poet and begins with him sitting at a desk, making a comment
about the pen that rests between his finger and thumb. He then hears the sound of a spade,
notes that it is his father, then reminisces with a fond tone to memories of twenty years ago
and remarks about how his father could handle a spade just like his fathers father. This
prompts him to reminisce about memories even further back, eventually returning to the
present, and to the pen in his hand. By arranging stanzas like so, according to clear
differentiations in subject, a sense of seamless continuity is created. Furthermore, the cyclical
nature of the structure may serve to reflect one of the points of contention within the poem,
that of the father-son relationship and the implicit self-perpetuating cycle of following in the
formers footsteps.