Interchapter III “Past its own aim, out to another side”

Abstract

Does the pitchfork betoken phallocentricism? Heaney’s own text leaves that particular subtext fairly undisguised, what with the tool’s “smoothness, straightness, roundness, length and sheen.” Yet readerly discernment would seem to dictate that poet, speaker, or both have already recognized the fact right along with us....