To add to the answer already given, what is very interesting about Heaney is his use of agricultural trope and the landscapes of nature. He seems relate all of that to the vocation of the poet. In Death of a Naturalist, there is a poem 'Digging' where he makes this association very very clear. He calls the poet a digger who digs with his 'squat pen' much like the farmer. He has a collection of poems called 'Field Work' where all the poems, as the title suggests, makes the same comparison between the poet and the farmer. The excavational imagery in Heaney connects with his evocation of the Irish history, Ulster's violent past as in the bog-lands of The Tollund Man.
In a poem like The Father, once again, the poet finds himself face to face with the passing way of agricultural life, associated with the spectral image of paternity, native tradition. Rather than creating a radical break, he will appropriate it.
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