The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney

by Edited by Bernard O'Donoghue

• ISBN13: 9780521838825
• ISBN10: 0521838827
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-01-19
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Seamus Heaney is a unique phenomenon in contemporary literature, as a poet whose individual volumes (such as his Beowulf translation, and individual volumes of poems such as Electric Light and District and Circle) have been high in the bestseller lists for decades. Since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, he has come to be considered one of the most important English language poets in the world. This Companion gives an up-to-date overview of his career thus far, and of his reception in Ireland, England and around the world. Its distinguished contributors offer detailed readings of all his major publications, in poetry, prose and translation. The essays further explore the central themes of his poetry, his relations with other writers, and his prose writing. Designed for students, this volume will also have much to interest and inform the general reader and admirer of Heaney's unique poetic voice.

Table of Contents

Introduction Bernard O'Donoghue

Heaney's working titles: from Advancement of Learning to Midnight Anvil Rand Brandes

The context of Heaney's reception Patrick Crotty

Heaney in public Dennis O'Driscoll

Heaney and the feminine Fran Brearton

Heaney and Eastern Europe Justin Quinn

Heaney's classics and the bucolic Bernard O'Donoghue

Professing poetry: Heaney as critic David Wheatley

Heaney and the Irish Poetic Tradition Andrew Murphy

Irish influence and confluence in Heaney's poetry Dillon Johnston

Heaney and Yeats Neil Corcoran

Heaney's Wordsworth and the poetics of displacement Guinn Batten

Heaney, Beowulf, and the medieval literature of the north Heather O'Donoghue

Crediting marvels: Heaney after 50 John Wilson Foster

Guide to further reading

Index

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