When representing a nation, there is profound ambivalence over
whether the image corresponds with or overwhelms the national idea
that has been weakened by colonialism. Lloyd draws attention to the
complexity of Yeatsís conception of a national tradition to tease out
the ambiguities of ëEaster 1916í. ëEaster 1916í questions the ability of
the poet to create a nation and write a national politics, and the
desirability of such a project in view of a violent and volatile national
situation. Lloyd explains this self-consciousness further: ëThe national
artist not only deploys symbols, but is a symbol, participating
organically in what he represents, that is, the spirit of the nation-yet-
to-be.í^19 ëEaster 1916í demonstrates the difficulties for a country that
has suffered a colonial presence and culture to construct a national
identity without reiterating similar structures of oppression already
found in the stereotypes of colonial or racist representation. In
response to this debate, Seamus Deane writes:
Nationalism had certainly helped to create a new idea of Ireland, which had
great and liberating consequences. But it also created a version of Irishness [...]
which was restricting and as subject to caricature as the old colonialism had
been. This was not surprising since the nationalism was a response to
colonialism and since it had been led by the Anglo-Irish, the colonials
themselves.^20Yeatsís great national literature represents the old structures of
oppression against which it is supposed to fight.
In his analysis of Seamus Heaney in ëPap for the Dispossessedí
(1993), Lloyd presents an argument that, when read in the light of his
chapter on Yeats, ëThe Poetic of Politicsí, is not as logical as it at first
appears. Lloyd presents Heaneyís poetry as being ëatavisticí, whereby
the poet delves into the past in order to make the future ëracy of the
soilí. In this way, Lloyd implies that Heaneyís poetry is comparable
with that of the Irish Literary Revivalists, a group in which Yeats is
usually included, who identified the writer with the ëspirit of the
nationí. Lloyd argues that Heaney is comparable with the Revivalists
as he reterritorializes language and culture, uncritically replaying ëthe
Romantic schema of a return to origins which restores continuity
19 Ibid., p.69.
20 Deane, p.203.