The Poetry of Seamus Heaney
(1929-2013)
"Irish Poet of Soil and Strife"
Understanding and a deeper appreciation for his poetry comes from an understanding of Heaney's history and his context, as both were great influences on his work over the course of his life.
"... emerged from a hidden, a buried life and entered into the realm of education..." "...makes you see, hear, smell, taste this life." "If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, you inwardness." |
Autobiographical Information
- Recognised as one of the major poets of the 20th century -Heaney was born the eldest member of a family of nine children. His father owned and worked a small farm in County Derry in Northern Ireland. The impact of his surroundings and the details of his upbringing on his work are immense. - A Catholic in Protestant Northern Ireland, Heaney once described himself in the New York Times Book Review as someone who "emerged from a hidden, a buried life and entered the realm of education" - Eventually studying English at Queen's University, Heaney was especially moved by artists who created poetry out of their local and native environments. - Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 "for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." - He earned the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, the largest annual prize for literary criticism in the English language. "The poet who has shown the finest art in presenting a coherent vision of Ireland, past and present." "...sees a world in a grain of sand." |
His Work
- Subject matter: modern Northern Ireland, its farms and cities beset with civil strike, its national culture and language overrun by English rule - "The poet who has shown the finest art in presenting a coherent vision of Ireland, past and present" The New York Review of Books essayist Richard Murphy - Heaney's Poetry is know for it's aural beauty and finely wrought textures - Often described as a regional poet, he is also a traditionalist who deliberately gestures back towards the "pre-modern" worlds - His work has always been most concerned with the past - Using descriptions of rural labourers and their tasks and the contemplations of natural phenomena - filtered through childhood and adulthood - Heaney "makes you see, hear, smell, taste this life" noted Newsweek correspondent Jack Kroll. - Heaney used his work to reflect upon the "Troubles", the often-violent political struggles that plagued Northern Ireland during Heaney's young adulthood. - When asked about the value of poetry in times of crisis, Heaney answered it is precisely at such moments that people realise they need more to live than economics: "If poetry and the arts do anything, they can fortify your inner life, you inwardness." |
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Key Points about Irish History and Heaney's Context
- Throughout Irish history: continuous rebellion and unrest - English Imperialism - Need for power and land, and to check the rebellion - As punishment for the 1641 rebellion, almost all Catholic lands were confiscated and given to British settlers - Catholic/Protestant Clash - Protestant Ascendancy after The Reformation in 1632 - Ireland remained Catholic and this sectarian difference meant native Irish and Roman Catholics were excluded from political power - No success in religious conversion - Brutal methods used to reclaim land and ensure domination caused heightened resentment of British rule - Irish antagonism towards England was aggravated by Ireland's economic situation in the 18th century and the Great Irish Famine - Irish Nationalists (most of Ireland, agrarian, Catholic) vs Irish Unionists (North Eastern Ireland, industrialised, Protestant) - Home Rule was the desire to break with the Union and establish self-government - Power of the Catholic Church; conservative social policies - Northern Ireland and "The Troubles" - Violent clashes between Nationalist minority in a conservative Unionist state - Linked to poor economic situation, social problems and inequality - Fortification and division of areas into Protestant and Catholic What effect would the political situation in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s have had on a man? A poet? What attitudes to ways of thinking in the world today are we likely to see? |
The Poetry
- Central to Heaney's poetry is the notion that we must retreat into the past to fin the self, and it is only through the self that we can attempt to alter the present and the future: Self exploration! - Heaney's distinctive quality as a poet is that he is at once parochial and universal, grounded in particular localities and microcultures yet branching out to touch ever reader: A paradox? - A "here and everywhere" note. - His command of what William Blake called "minute particularity" allows him to conjure up a sense of the universal even when focusing on a distinct individuality - to see "a world in a grin of sand." - "For Heaney, a sense of self depends on a sense of place and a sense of history, something which is typical of the Irish writer and derives to some extent fro the Irish writer's desire to protect and preserve what is diminished." - "There is a very strong autobiographical element in Heaney's work, where personal memory and a sense of the local have been vital ingredients in his poetry from the start." - Heaney's poetry represents an endeavour to locate both personal and national identity, to which a sense of place is inherent, by confronting the complexities of Ireland's history and its present political events. - Heaney embraces the poetry of his cultural forbearers and connects himself to larger movements contained within Irish poetic substance and form.
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