The Cambridge Companion to Seamus Heaney

This Companion gives an overview of Heaney's career, with detailed readings of his major publications.

Bernard O'Donoghue (Edited by)

9780521838825, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 December 2008

262 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.7 cm, 1.03 kg

"O'Donoghue has gathered an impressive collection of essays in appreciation of the poetic and prose work of Seamus Heaney...Recommended."
-M. H Kealy, Immacula University, Choice

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 overview of his career and of his reception in Ireland, England and around the world. Its distinguished contributors offer detailed readings of 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.

1. Introduction Bernard O'Donoghue
2. Heaney's working titles: from Advancement of Learning to Midnight Anvil Rand Brandes
3. The context of Heaney's reception Patrick Crotty
4. Heaney in public Dennis O'Driscoll
5. Heaney and the feminine Fran Brearton
6. Heaney and Eastern Europe Justin Quinn
7. Heaney's classics and the bucolic Bernard O'Donoghue
8. Professing poetry: Heaney as critic David Wheatley
9. Heaney and the Irish Poetic Tradition Andrew Murphy
10. Irish influence and confluence in Heaney's poetry Dillon Johnston
11. Heaney and Yeats Neil Corcoran
12. Heaney's Wordsworth and the poetics of displacement Guinn Batten
13. Heaney, Beowulf, and the medieval literature of the north Heather O'Donoghue
14. Crediting marvels: Heaney after 50 John Wilson Foster
Guide to further reading
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literature & literary studies [D]