Does the artist have a responsibility to mirror the conflicts and problems of society in his or her work? Perhaps more than most, the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, has been faced with this question. Living in Belfast since 1957, Heaney decided to leave Northern Ireland altogether in 1972, his residency there spanning fifteen years of social upheaval and violence. “I am fatigued,” Heaney wrote in 1971, “by a continuous adjudication between agony and injustice, swung at one moment by the long tail or race and resentment, at another by the more acceptable feelings of pity and terror” (from Preoccupations, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1980). Several years later in the final poem of North (1975), Heaney would describe himself ensconced in Wicklow as a Gaelic outlaw “escaped from the massacre,” one who bides his time and weighs his “responsible tristia.”
While obvious difficulties attend any study that would attempt a comprehensive reading of a living poet, the rapid and various developments of Heaney’s poetic technique have been accompanied by a singularly concentrated sense of subject matter, and it is this concentration that permits an extensive critical treatment of Heaney’s existing corpus. Derived from the complex milieu of Northern Ireland, Heaney’s subject matters have been typically labeled “political,” and as often happens in such discussions, his poetry suffers from the constricted perspective.
Burris’ study demonstrates how Heaney handles the dilemma of an artist in a tumultuous society: pastoral poetry, in Heaney’s hands, has been essentially modernized, refurbishing its traditional capacity to proffer trenchant social and cultural criticism while honoring the aesthetic demands of the art.
Sidney Burris is assistant professor of English at the University of Arkansas. More info →
Share 
This book is not available for desk, examination, or review copy requests.
Permission to reprint
Permission
to photocopy or include in a course pack
via Copyright Clearance
Center
Click or tap on a subject heading to sign up to be notified when new related books come out.
The Room Within
Poems
By Moore Moran
The Room Within is a retrospective survey of a poetic career dating back to the late fifties. A student of Yvor Winters at Stanford, Moore Moran has deservedly earned a reputation, along with fellow Winters students Turner Cassity and Edgar Bowers, as a “poet’s poet.”
Poems Old and New, 1918-1978
By Janet Lewis
Kenneth Rexroth wrote: “Janet Lewis uses reason to veil and adorn the flesh of feeling and intuition. This is the way the greatest poetry has always been written.”The poems in this collection range over a period of 60 years. The style is spare, direct, cutting to the core of subject. Richness of intelligence and a concern for the human has also characterized every phase of Lewis’ development.
A Poet’s Prose
Selected Writings of Louise Bogan
By Louise Bogan
·
Edited by Mary Kinzie
Although best known as a master of the formal lyric poem, Louise Bogan (1897–1970) also published fiction and what would now be called lyrical essays. A Poet’s Prose: Selected Writings of Louise Bogan showcases her devotion to compression, eloquence, and sharp truths.Louise Bogan was poetry reviewer for the New Yorker for thirty-eight years, and her criticism was remarkable for its range and effect.
Irish People, Irish Linen
By Kathleen Curtis Wilson
The story of Irish linen is a story of the Irish people. Many thousands of men and women made Irish linen a global product and an international brand. It is also a story of innovation and opportunity. Irish linen has served its makers as sail cloth of incredible strength and durability for world exploration and trade; it has functioned as watertight containers for farmers and firemen; it has soothed the brows of royalty and absorbed the sweat of the working class.
Textile Arts · Art · Irish History · Social History · Labor History · European History · History · Art History
Sign up to be notified when new Literature titles come out.
We will only use your email address to notify you of new titles in the subject area(s) you follow. We will never share your information with third parties.
