Seamus Heaney and the Language of Poetry

by O'Donoghue, Bernard

• ISBN13: 9780133207637
• ISBN10: 0133207633
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-09-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

Seamus Heaney is one of the most popular Irish poets writing today, and although his critics have recognized the centrality of the language of his poetry and his pronouncements on language, these aspects of his work have received little concentrated critical attention. Berhnard O'Donoghue, himself a poet, works chronologically through Heaney's poetry -- focusing on Heaney's writing on the appropriate language of poetry and his theory of poetry and the writer's responsibility to art and politics. Covers topics such as English or Irish lyric: 60s Heaney. Phonetics and feeling: from Wintering Out to Field Work. The limbo of lost worlds: the Sweeney complex. Beyond the alphabet: The Haw Lantern; Seeing Things. Heaney's 'Ars Poetica'; Dante and The Government of the Tongue. For those interested in modern and contemporary poetry, and Irish literature.

Author Biography

Bernard O'Donoghue is a lecturer and tutor in English at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: 'An Art that knows its mind'	p. 1
English or Irish Lyric? (1960s Heaney)	p. 25
Phonetics and Feeling: Wintering Out, North and Field Work (1970s Heaney)	p. 56
'The limbo of lost words': The Sweeney Complex	p. 88
Beyond the Alphabet: The Haw Lantern and Seeing Things	p. 108
Heaney's ars poetica: Mandelstam, Dante and The Government of the Tongue	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 153
Notes	p. 156
Bibliography	p. 167
Index	p. 169
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