From Antaeus to the Bog Queen: Mythological Allusions in Seamus Heaney’s North / Antaeus’tan Bataklık Kraliçesi’ne: Seamus Heaney’nin North Adlı Yapıtında Mitolojik Göndermeler

Year 2013, Volume: 17 Issue: 2, 0 - , 03.01.2014

Mümin Hakkıoğlu , Erdinç Parlak

Abstract

Abstract: Addressing the Irish Troubles in his “North”, 1995 Nobel Laureate Seamus

Heaney makes mythological allusions and tells of the chaos by using symbolic language.

His relevant poems, Antaeus and Hercules myths from Greek mythology are the stories of

source power for the Irish and those of their dispossessions. His poems dealing with the cult

of Nerthus, the goddess of earth in Scandinavian mythology, are the narratives underlying

the cultural kinships between the two geographies, reflecting contemporary practices of cycle

of violence. In this sense, the bog queens in ‘Come to the Bower’ and ‘Bog Queen’ appear

to be as Nerthus, for whom people were sacrificed to ensure the fertility of the territory in

spring, and as Mother Ireland, who needs the blood of her children to survive. While the first

group traces back the reasons of hibernation of Ireland, defined as the ‘sleeping giant’, the

second one picks the route of violence followed by her loyalties to awaken this giant. Heaney’s

preference to hold a mirror to his locale through Greek and Scandinavian mythologies is a

result of his desire to show the political and social chaos comprehensively.

Öz: 1995 Nobel Edebiyat Ödülü sahibi Seamus Heaney ‘North’ adlı kitabında İrlanda

Sorunu’nu ele alırken mitolojik anıştırmalarda bulunmuş, yaşanan karmaşayı simgesel bir

dille anlatmıştır. Yunan mitolojisindeki Antaeus ve Hercules söylenceleri, onun ilgili şiirlerinde,

İrlandalıların köklerinin ve köklerinden kopartılış sürecinin öyküleridir. İskandinav

mitolojisindeki Toprak Tanrıçası Nerthus kültüyle ilgili şiirleri ise, iki coğrafya arasındaki

ekinsel benzerlikleri vurgulayan, şiddet döngüsünün çağdaş pratiklerini yansıtan anlatılardır.

Bu anlamda, ‘Come to the Bower’ ve ‘Bog Queen’ şiirlerinde sözü edilen bataklık kraliçeleri,

ilkbaharda toprağa bereket getirmesi için kendisine kurbanlar sunulan Nerthus, kurtuluşu

için evlatlarının kanına gereksinim duyan İrlanda Ana olarak görünür. Birinci grup, ‘uyuyan

dev’ olarak tanımlanan İrlanda’nın uykuya yatışının izlerini sürerken, ikinci grup bu devin

uyanması için izlenen şiddet yolunu yanlış bularak eleştirir. Heaney’nin Yunan ve İskandinav

mitolojileri aracılığı ile kendi yereline uzaktan ayna tutmayı yeğlemesi, yaşanan siyasal ve

toplumsal karmaşayı bütün boyutlarıyla gösterebilme isteğinin bir sonucudur

Keywords: Seamus Heaney, poetry, Ireland, Irish Troubles, mythology, bog

Anahtar Kelimeler: Seamus Heaney, şiir, İrlanda, İrlanda sorunu, mitoloji, bataklık

Keywords

Seamus Heaney, şiir, İrlanda, İrlanda sorunu, mitoloji, bataklık

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