difference. In his essay ëOrientalism Reconsideredí (1986), Edward
Said has criticized anti-imperialist critiques that ëdepend also on a
homogenizing and incorporating world historical scheme that
assimilated non-synchronous developments, histories, cultures and
people to it.í^27 Said describes ë[t]he great horror I think we should feel
towards systematic or dogmatic orthodoxies of one sort or another.í^28
Against ëdogmatic orthodoxiesí, Said looks to a performative process
of instability and ëcontrapuntal juxtapositions that diminish orthodox
judgementsí.^29
Criticism, Mastery and Irony
As they problematize the relationship between subjectivity and the
politics of the nation-state, the assimilation of identity into a colonial-
ist or nationalist mindset is resisted by the poets under discussion. In
ëThe Flight Pathí Heaney is asked: ëWhen, for fuckís sake, are you
going to write/ Something for us?í While Muldoon in ëLunch With
Pancho Villaí presents the poet being chastized for writing about
ëstars and horses, pigs and treesí rather than getting ëdown to
something true,/ Something a little nearer homeí.^30 Refusing to write
for his coercive critic who ësits down/ Opposite and goes for me head
oní; ignoring the demand to write for a homogenizing ëusí, Heaneyís
speaker answers: ëIf I do write something,/ Whatever it is, Iíll be
writing for myselfí.^31 In this way, Heaney sets up an oppositional
27 Edward Said, ‘Orientalism Reconsidered’, Francis Barker, ed., Literature,
Politics and Theory: Papers from the Essex Conference 1976–1984) (London:
Methuen, 1986), pp.223–9.
28 Said, ‘Narrative, Geography and Interpretation’, New Left Review, 180 (1990),
pp.81–93.
29 Said, ‘Reflections On Exile’, Russell Fergusson, ed., Out There: Marginal-
ization in Contemporary Cultures (New York: New Museum of Contemporary
Art, 1990), p.366.
30 Paul Muldoon, ‘Lunch With Pancho Villa’, Mules (1977), New and Selected
Poems 1968–1994 (London: Faber, 1996), p.25.
31 Seamus Heaney, ‘The Flight Path’, The Spirit Level (London: Faber, 1996),
p.25.