What Are the Preoccupations of Heaney’s Poetry and How Does he Explore them Through Digging and An Advancement of Learning?

... John Jones Monday, 10 June 2002 What Are the Preoccupations of Heaney's Poetry and How Does he Explore them Through Digging and An Advancement of Learning? The Poem Digging deals with Heaney's relationship with his family. An Advancement of Learning deals with Heaney's childhood and his fears when he was young and now that he is older how he overcomes those fears. In his poem Digging Heaney is deciding on how he will use his poetry and its relevance to the work of his father and grandfather. He writes about his fathers job digging for potatoes and his prowess with a shovel, "The course boot nestled on the lug, the shaft against the inside knee was levered firmly", he makes the action of his father digging for potatoes sound professional rather than just a haphazard way of shoving a shovel into the ground. He reflects on the pride he has for

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