SOURCE: “Seed like Stars: Kavanagh's Nature,” in Eire-Ireland, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring, 1983, pp. 98–108.

In the extract below, Klejs considers Kavanagh's opposing views of nature—both external and human—as seen in The Great Hunger and shorter poems.

In Patrick Kavanagh's poetry two opposing views of nature—both external nature and human nature—are discernible. On one hand, Kavanagh introduces a view of nature where matter is fundamentally dissociated from the divine. As Kavanagh often depicts this in its final stage, nature appears as a dead and oppressive force which represents only hard labor. Those who work intimately with dead nature tend to adopt its characteristics: they are either incapable of living ordinary human lives, or their attempts at living like human beings are frustrated. The Great Hunger and “Stony Grey Soil” constitute good examples of this view. On the other hand, the very opposite view of nature is equally...