The title, The Government of the Tongue, carries suggestions of both monastic discipline and untrammelled romanticism, and is meant to raise an old question about the rights and status of poetic utterance itself.
Electric Light travels widely in time and space, visiting the sites of the classical world, revisiting the poet's childhood: rural electrification and the light of ancient evenings are reconciled within the orbit of a single lifetime.
A work of unreconciled Shakespearean intensity, the Testament has been translated by Seamus Heaney into a confident and yet faithful... Læs mere
The long poem is preceded by a section of shorter lyrics and leads into a third group of poems in which the poet's voice is at one with the voice of the legendary mad King Sweeney.... Læs mere
A collection of elegies and love poems, and a short sonnet sequence which concentrates on such themes as: the individual's responsibility for his own choices, the artist's commitment to his vocation, the vulnerability of all in the face of circumstance and death.
He proceeds to explore how this 'redress' manifests itself in a diverse range of poems and poets, including Christopher Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander', 'The Midnight Court' by the... Læs mere
Seamus Heaney had the idea to form a personal selection from across the entire arc of his poetry, small yet comprehensive enough to serve as an introduction for all comers.
The letters provide us with an intimate, multi-layered understanding of this extraordinarypoet's life and mind.
'A marvellous book, lovingly edited, beautifully produced. . . and brimming with literary insights, much laughter, a sprinkle of gossip and the poet's insuppressible joie de... Læs mere
This edition of Seamus Heaney's seminal fourth collection North, reproduced in its elegant first setting and original jacket, marks fifty years since first publication.