A dazzling short assessment of the life and work of the poet and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature.Among Heaney's many published collections are 'Death of a Naturalist', 'North', 'Field Work', 'Station Island' and 'Spirit Level' (May 1996), which was that rarest of things: a collection of poetry that was also a bestseller. Yet despite his popularity, Heaney's poetry can be difficult and intractable, not least because it is linked to two rich literary traditions, the English and the Irish.Helen Vendler is one of the finest literary critics writing today. First published in 2000, her book is the clear, explicatory work of criticism, relating the poet to his poetry, that Heaney deserves.
Seamus Heaney has dealt unflinchingly with the relationship between the personal and political, the aesthetic and the ethical, over four decades, in work firmly rooted in both the English and Irish literary traditions: his 1995 Nobel Prize fitting recognition of his poetic family farm in Derry. His first collection of poems, 'Death of a Naturalist' (1966), drew heavily upon this rural background for its earthy imagery. But as Northern Ireland descended into violence after 1968, into "a quarter century of life waste and spirit waste", Heaney was forced to become a poet of public as well as private life, a role whose pressures are reflected in the darkness of works such as the 'North' and 'Station Island'. Helen Vendler traces his development as a poet from 1966 onwards, pausing to look closely at individual poems and at Heaney's political and literary heritage. An acclaimed poetry critic, Vendler brings to the reader a sense of Heaney's struggle to be both socially responsible and creatively free, while explaining "as much to myself as to others the power of his extraordinary poetry."
"Vendler's 'Heaney' serves as a wonderfully succint road map to the poet's verse, illuminating the effect that both private and public events have had on the development of his work, while explicating the continual evolution of his style. She shows us how Heaney has pushed the boundaries of the traditional lyric poem in his efforts to articulate his changing vision of the world, even as she helps us to understand his masterly use of sound, symbol, imagery and parable."
MICHIKO KAKUTANI, 'New York Times'
"A compact study that traces the full arc of Heaney's career with lurid efficiency ... close readings emphasise the literary ancestry of individual poems."
EDWARD MENDLESON, 'New York Times Book Review'
