Everything you need to understand or teach
Seamus Heaney by Seamus Heaney.
Products may contain comprehensive summaries, analysis, notes, articles, essays,
lesson plans and more. See below for details on what is included.
Biography EssayFrom the beginning critical as well as popular acclaim has greeted each volume of Seamus Heaney's poetry. Who would have predicted in 1966, when his first full-length book appeared, the...
Read more
The poetry of Seamus Justin Heaney (born 1939) reveals his skill with language and his command of form and technique. In his poems, Heaney balances personal, topical, and universal themes. He approach...
Read more
[This entry was updated by Robert Buttel from his entry in the Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, volume 8, pp. 142-165.]From the beginning critical as well as popular acclaim has greet...
Read more
In the following prize-winning essay, Hart analyzes the opposing, yet interwoven themes of Heaney's poetry, maintaining that the poet finds "precedents in a tradition of Catholic meditat...
Read more
In the following favorable review, Vendler explores the defining characteristics of the poems compiled in The Haw Lantern, asserting that the volume is an expression of the natural loss of middle-age....
Read more
In the following interview, Heaney discusses his poetry, especially the poems in The Haw Lantern, as well as American poets that have influenced his work.
[BRANDES]: With your recent birthday (your 49...
Read more
In the following essay, Hart determines the influence of Robert Lowell on the poems of Field Work, and praises Heaney's willingness to take risks in this volume.
Most poetic careers advance lik...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Burris places Heaney's poetry within the context of pastoral tradition.
Abducted by Hades and spirited away to the underworld, Persephone ate several seeds from a pome...
Read more
In the following essay, Pinsky provides a favorable review of Heaney's Seeing Things.
Seamus Heaney's poems have earned a host of literary awards and about as much public celebration as ...
Read more
In the following essay, Atfield offers a Jungian interpretation of the poetry found in the volume Seeing Things.
Seamus Heaney is clearly conversant with Jung's psychology and its relevance to ...
Read more
In the following essay, Bidwell draws a connection between Heaney's metaphor of the bog and Irish republicanism.
In the spring of 1781 Lord Moira, a landlord with vast holdings in County Down, ...
Read more
In the following excerpt from the full-length study of Heaney's work, Buttel examines the seminal influences on Heaney's early poetry.
"A poet begins involved with craft, with asp...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Zoutenbier traces the thematic and stylistic development of Heaney's verse.
Seamus Heaney was born in Country Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1939, the oldest of nine chil...
Read more
In the following review of Heaney's two volumes of collected poetry and prose, Shapiro relates the stylistic and thematic development of Heaney's poetry to his assertion of personal and ...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Vendler examines the major themes of Heaney's Station Island.
Station Island, also known as St. Patrick's Purgatory, is an island in Lough Derg, in northwest Ir...
Read more
In the following interview, Heaney discusses his writing habits, the origin of Sweeney Astray, and the work of other contemporary poets.
Seamus Heaney, the poet from Ireland, has just been granted ten...
Read more
Critical Essay by Patricia Beer
Geographically [Heaney's] landscape [in Wintering Out] is still the Irish countryside, past or present….
Sometimes the countryside is seen, dramatically, ...
Read more
Critical Essay by William H. Pritchard
I've admired Seamus Heaney's work, but have preserved my distance from it: almost no human beings, but grainily humble perceptions in terse lines. ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Kenneth Mcrobbie
North is the latest collection of verse by Ireland's most significant living poet. The theme is Ireland, but in a new regional and particularly temporal sense...
Read more
Critical Essay by Peter Porter
Heaney has plenty of magic in his poetry: that moving on from the first unusual word, the right placing of which is probably in the gift of every poet, to a second one w...
Read more
Critical Essay by Donald Hall
Seamus Heaney's new volume is Field Work, containing poems written since North in 1976. North was a superb volume; I suppose Field Work is even better, though it i...
Read more
Critical Essay by Denis Donoghue
Seamus Heaney … has learned his trade so well that it is now a second nature wonderfully responsive to his first. And the proof is in "Field Work,"...
Read more
Critical Essay by Terence Brown
It is a mistake … to think of Heaney as merely a descriptive poet, endowed with unusual powers of observation. From the first his involvement with landscape and ...
Read more
Critical Essay by Anthony Thwaite
The first six pieces in [Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978], all quite short, form an untitled section on their own, though three are headed "Mos...
Read more
Critical Essay by David Wright
[Selected Poems 1965–1975] is an impressive little book in that the poems have an obsidian polish and are obviously made to last; that some will, there is no doub...
Read more
Critical Essay by Robert Pinsky
The strengths and limitations of poet-critics, as a class, seem to come from intensity of focus: They need to think about writing, about poetic composition. And any ins...
Read more
Critical Essay by Marjorie Perloff
[Of] the 10 essays in Preoccupations (there are also 11 short reviews), only one stands out: the Berkeley lecture (1976) called "Englands of the Mind,"...
Read more
Critical Essay by Rodney Rybus
[The essays in Preoccupations] are freely admitted to be occasional pieces brought about by the life of a freelance writer rather than an academic critic, and none at al...
Read more
Critical Essay by Anne Stevenson
[Heaney] seems to do effortlessly what poets in Britain have been trying to do for a long time; that is, to write a profound and important poetry which is at once topi...
Read more
Critical Essay by Gregory A. Schirmer
The difficulty that poets face in negotiating between the local and the universal, between a wish to be true to one's place and cultural heritage and a des...
Read more
Critical Essay by Jay Parini
North is a major accomplishment, a book-length sequence of lyrics which exploits the metaphor of possession more fully than any other Irish poet has done. The poems are ri...
Read more
Critical Essay by Harold Bloom
I would not say that the Northern Ireland poet Seamus Heaney, at forty, has printed any single poem necessarily as fine as [Yeats's] "Adam's Curse&#...
Read more
Critical Essay by A. Alvarez
Heaney has in abundance a gift which the English distrust in one another but expect of the Irish: a fine way with the language. What in Brendan Behan, for instance, was a ...
Read more
In the following review, Moldaw contrasts the subject matter of Heaney's earlier works with that of Seeing Things and Selected Poems, noting a shift from materiality to abstraction.
Seamus Hean...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Shetley enthuses about Heaney's “sensitive” perspective on contemporary poetics in The Redress of Poetry.
In his criticism, T. S. Eliot once asserted, a ...
Read more
In the following excerpt, Hosmer assesses the style and theme of The Spirit Level.
Most of Heaney's poetry is eminently accessible. His latest collection, The Spirit Level, is no exception. Ope...
Read more
In the following review, Pratt highlights the influence of Ireland and Irish culture in the poems of Opened Ground.
Ireland is a country of only about four million people, but in this century it has p...
Read more
In the following review, Desmond outlines Heaney's career through the poems in Opened Ground.
In his 1995 Nobel Prize address, “Crediting Poetry,” Seamus Heaney defined lyric poet...
Read more
In the following review, Shippey objects to Heaney's use of Irish words derived from Anglo-Saxon, but unfamiliar to most English speakers, in his translation of Beowulf.
In the 1997 Beowulf Han...
Read more
In the following review, Howe singles out the humanity and energy of the narrative speeches in Heaney's translation of Beowulf, but concedes that Heaney's use of Ulster idiom is inapprop...
Read more
In the following review, Campbell praises Heaney for making Beowulf accessible to twenty-first-century students, using his verses as a bridge between the original text and modern English.
Speaking fro...
Read more
In the following essay, Boly applies speech act theory to construct multiple modes of meaning and layers of reality for the main persona in Heaney's poem “Follower.”
Readers of Se...
Read more
In the following review, Murphy evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Heaney's translation of Beowulf.
The Anglo-Saxon scholar Jess Bessinger used to refer to the poem we call Beowulf as th...
Read more
In the following essay, Quinlan examines Heaney's background as a Catholic native of Northern Ireland, outlining how changes in his life and philosophies affected his poetry.
In 1989, when Seam...
Read more
In the following review, Pratt champions Heaney's fresh approach to the language of Beowulf.
The oldest epic in English comes to us anew, like a voice out of the cave of our ancestors. It greet...
Read more
In the following essay, Bolton analyzes the means and ends of Heaney's poetics, as exemplified by the structure and thematic concerns of what Bolton identifies as Heaney's “statio...
Read more
In the following review, Newey offers a negative assessment of Electric Light, noting that “the compressed textures of the language tak[es primacy over just about everything else.”]
All ...
Read more
In the following review, Mariani celebrates the influence of both famous and non-famous authors on the poems in Electric Light.
Because Seamus Heaney and I are of an age, and because he has been my se...
Read more
In the following review, Mangan praises Heaney's impeccable pairing of words to things and his ability to elevate poetry to the level of myth or religion in Electric Light.
Seamus Heaney has ma...
Read more
In the following review, Oser offers a positive assessment of Electric Light.
Like all of Seamus Heaney's work, Electric Light owns up to a modernist inheritance. Anyone who argues that moderni...
Read more
In the following review, Taylor appreciates Heaney's examination of the past in Electric Light, but laments the poet's apparent emotional distance from his subjects.
Although Seamus Hean...
Read more
In the following review, Glover offers a positive assessment of Finders Keepers: Selected Prose, noting that Heaney's poetry and criticism “has helped to keep the craft of poetry on the ...
Read more
In the following essay, Allen traces the effect of American literature and culture on Heaney's poetry.
“Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.” So wrote Larkin, who had left ...
Read more
In the following essay, Tillinghast assesses the political and artistic implications of the poems in Station Island and North.
Some years ago when Seamus Heaney was rumored once again to have missed a...
Read more
In the following essay, Pratt provides an overview of Heaney's life and career through his 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.
When Yeats received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, he was fift...
Read more
In the following essay, Keen applauds the tone and style of Heaney's poetics, highlighting its links to the oral traditions of poetry.
Seamus Heaney in the college cafeteria line at Harvard: Th...
Read more
In the following review, Pratt criticizes Heaney's overemphasis on politics in The Redress of Poetry.
The lectures Seamus Heaney gave while occupying the Chair of Poetry at Oxford from 1989 to ...
Read more
In the following review, Sen assesses the humanist impulses that inform The Spirit Level.
Seamus Heaney's collection The Spirit Level is his first book of poems to appear following his 1995 Nob...
Read more
In the following essay, Deane connects the political aspects of Heaney's poetry with definitions of Ireland as both cultural and geographic entities.
Since his first book, Death of a Naturalist...
Read more
[Kinzie is an American poet, critic, and educator. In the following excerpt, she analyzes the imagery and syntax of Heaney's poetry, focusing on the epic poem, "Station Island."]
...
Read more
[Hart is an American critic and educator. In the following essay, his introduction to Seamus Heaney, he examines Heaney's development as a poet, focusing on his position in—and his react...
Read more
[In the following article, Grimes summarizes Heaney's life and career.]
The Irish poet Seamus Heaney has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In conferring the prize, the Swedish Academy...
Read more
[In the following article, Clarity reports Heaney's reactions to winning the Nobel Prize.]
Seamus Heaney, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, arrived home last night and was welcomed n...
Read more
[In the following interview, Heaney discusses his philosophy of language and the influence his father and his home in Ireland have had on his poetry.]
Seamus Heaney is one of the best known and most w...
Read more
[In the following essay, which is based on an interview with Heaney, Bing discusses the poet's early work and the ideas that led to his book, The Redress of Poetry.]
There is a Gaelic superstit...
Read more
[In the following review of The Redress of Poetry, Bayley maintains that though Heaney's criticism is sound and fair, it offers no new startling insights.]
Seamus Heaney's slim book of o...
Read more
Irish writer Seamus Heaney can be seen as occupying a number of positions, or roles, within his society as a poet. One such position is primarily concerned with the interpretation and application of t...
Read more
Seamus Heaney explores many aspects of Irish history through his poetry and is able to express his thoughts and attitudes towards historical issues by using various poetic techniques such as imagery, ...
Read more
Seamus Heaney Essay Question
Seamus Heaney, one of Irelands most famous poets, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.Heaney add...
Read more
Heaney's first anthology Death of a Naturalist is the best source for poems that show how common and often mundane things are described in beautiful language and rediscovered as meaningful activities....
Read more
Memory and the past was greatly concerned in the two poems "The Early Purges," by Seamus Heaney and "Piano and drums," by Gabriel Okara. Through usage of effective writing and poetic techniques, we ar...
Read more
What does the poem show of the relationship of his father and son, and how time has changed this?
The poem "Follower" by Seamus Heaney creates an image of a loving father who was physically powerful ...
Read more
Describe important symbols in the texts you have studied AND analyse how the symbols helped develop important ideas.
Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney is renowned for writing poems about his personal...
Read more
Seamus Heaney is one of the greatest poets in recent years and often writes about his childhood. I believe this is because he is trying to understand his own childhood and how his early experiences af...
Read more
`Blackberry Picking' by Seamus Heaney focuses on childhood and childhood memories through an account of a blackberry-picking expedition that Heaney has become accustomed to and appears to view as a po...
Read more
By examining and connecting to the past years, we are more likely to understand the present day. In "Digging," written in 1966, the contemporary Irish poet, Seamus Heaney provides a perspective of his...
Read more
Seamus Heaney's poem "Blackberry-Picking" conveys the nature of a blackberry harvest, albeit with language that is physically intensive. The poet's expression suggests that the passage hides multi-lay...
Read more
Abstract
This research takes a postmodern approach to Seamus Heaney's two poems: Bogland and The Tollund Man. The evidences in the research bring illuminations to the significant issues of post...
Read more
Seamus Justin Heaney
Seamus (Justin) Heaney
Critical Essay by Henry Hart
What Is the Position of a Poet within Society?
