Seamus Heaney's poem 'Digging' draws an extended metaphorical comparison between:
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: A. The agricultural spade of his father/grandfather and his own squat writer's pen
- Step 1: Examine the central metaphor in the opening poem of Seamus Heaney's 1966 collection Death of a Naturalist.
- Step 2: Analyze the generational contrast and vocation: Heaney contrasts the physical labor of his father and grandfather cutting turf and harvesting potatoes with their spades against his own artistic craft, famously concluding: "The squat pen rests. / I'll dig with it." Thus, the extended comparison is between the agricultural spade of his father/grandfather and his own squat writer's pen.
Answer
The agricultural spade of his father/grandfather and his own squat writer's pen.
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