Seamus Heaney: An Introduction

The first detailed introduction to the entirety of Seamus Heaney’s work

This study will enable readers to gain clearer understanding of the life and major works of Seamus Heaney. It considers literary influences on Heaney, ranging from English poets such as Wordsworth, Hughes, and Auden to Irish poets such as Kavanagh and Yeats to world poets such as Virgil and Dante. It shows how Heaney was closely attuned to poetry’s impact on daily life and current events even as he articulated a convincing apologia for poetry’s own life and integrity. Discussing Heaney’s deep immersion in Irish Catholicism, this book demonstrates how faith influenced his belief system, poetry and politics. Finally, it also considers how deeply Heaney’s artistic endeavours were intertwined with politics in Northern Ireland, especially through his embrace of constitutional nationalism but rejection of physical force republicanism.

Key Features

Includes sections on biography, historical, cultural and political contexts, poetry and other genres, as well as a concluding section on primary works and secondary criticism Pays special attention to the marriage of form and content in the poetry and how they work together to express subtle shades of meaning Offers close readings of Heaney’s canonical poems throughout his career, including the early seminal poems such as Digging, the “bog poems’, and his many elegies, such as Casualty, Station Island, and Clearances Draws on drafts of the poems and prose at the Heaney archives at Emory University and the National Library of Ireland