populace is presented in danger of being repressive and equated with
the dominating ëideologyí. This is where post-colonial nationalist
agendas collide with postmodernist theories which do not allow for
the specific political agenda and sense of community that post-
colonial nationalism must necessarily express; the traces of which are
to be found in Heaneyís rhetorical uses of ëweí and ëourí. It is this
tension between postmodern dissolution of identity, post-nationalist
ëflight pathsí taken out of what is known and the post-colonial
nationalist desire to hold onto a sense of communal territory, with
which Heaney as ëthe middle maní struggles.^92
Interestingly, Docherty suggests that the ëgroundí for Heaneyís
poetry ëhas disappeared, or gone undergroundí.^93 ëThe Irishí are still
imagined having no clearly demarcated terrain from which to claim a
homogenous national identity. We have moved a long way from
Yeatsís image of ëThe Rose Treeí where the Irish ground was watered
by the blood of her faithful. What Docherty posits in place of the
quaking sod as a metaphor for understanding Irish identity is a
Deleuzian rhizome.
Deterritorialization
Docherty draws attention to Gilles Deleuze and FÈlix Guattariís
reading of rhizomatic philosophy in ëOn The Lineí and A Thousand
Plateaus (1988) to provide a postmodern understanding of Heaneyís
poetry. The rhizome is also taken as a model of deterritorialization
within post-colonial studies as typified by the work of Edouard
Glissant.^94 The rhizome is imagined as nomadic; made of shifting
directions, it is always on the move. Forever in transit, the rhizome is
neither beginning nor end ëbut always in the middleí.^95 The rhizome
92 Cf. Heaney, ëThe Flight Pathí, The Spirit Level, p.22ñ6.
93 Docherty, Alterities, p.115.
94 Cf. Jean BernabÈ , Patrick Chamoiseau, RapaÎl Confiant, ...loge de la CreolitÈ
(...ditions Gallimard, 1993).
95 Gilles Deleuze and FÈlix Guattari, On the Line (New York: Semiotext(e),
1983), p.47.