Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

1 ‘Preoccupying Questions’: Heaney’s Prose 9

2 ‘Continuous Adjudication’: Binary Oppositions and

the Field of Force 28

3 ‘Writing in the Sand’: Poetry and Transformation 60

4 ‘Surviving Amphibiously’: Poetry and Politics 81

5 ‘A Bright Nowhere’: The Deconstruction of Place 112

6 ‘Through-Otherness’: The Deconstruction of Language 133

7 Nobel Causes: Heaney and Yeats 156

Conclusion 180

Notes 183
Bibliography of Seamus Heaney’s Works 198
General Bibliography 199
Index 206
Introduction

In 1997, Seamus Heaney published a review of Roy Foster’s The

Apprentice Mage, the first volume of his biography of William Butler
Yeats, in The Atlantic Monthly. In this review, Heaney wrote about
both biographer and subject in terms which have no small bearing
on this book, and its raison d’être. To write a book about Seamus
Heaney, one must, of necessity, declare one’s raison d’être from the
outset as with over 30 books devoted to his work, the field is in
danger of becoming over-ploughed (indeed I have already ploughed
some earlier furrows myself). Any further exploration of Heaney
must, de facto, suggest its relation to, and difference from, this body
of critical work, if it is to justify its existence. That the majority of
these studies of Heaney have been beneficial to any understanding
of his work is a further problem – as this book cannot be offered as
a necessary corrective to previous critical errors. However, the poet
has, to date, been fortunate in his critics, therefore that avenue is
also closed.
So, if this book is to justify its place on the shelves, what then does
it bring to Heaney studies that has been heretofore lacking? In a time-
honoured manner in literary studies, and validated by the words of
Shakespeare that one can ‘by indirections find directions out’
(Hamlet: II, I), I will advance my thesis via Heaney’s book review. In
terms of what Heaney has to say about both Foster and Yeats, this
review serves as an index to the reasons for my writing this book, as
well as suggesting the critical niche which it hopes to fill. Contrary
to many studies of Heaney which see him as obsessed with the past,
I will be arguing that his work, both poetry and prose, is, on the
contrary, oriented very much towards the future.
Writing about Roy Foster, Heaney makes the following points with
regard to his position within Irish historical studies in particular and
Irish cultural studies in general. He notes that Foster is ‘identified as
the most influential “revisionist” among contemporary Irish
historians, which is to say that he, like his subject, has often been at
the centre of the culture wars’. He goes on to discuss the nature of
this revisionism noting that it attempts to revise the default nation-
alistic narrative of Irish history as a teleological emergence of the
‘Gaelic nation from foreign domination, culminating in the

1
2 Seamus Heaney

reinstatement of native government and the official recognition of

the native language and majority religion after Irish independence
was gained, in 1921’ (Heaney 1997). This narrative, it is argued,
suppresses other strands or varieties of Irishness ‘and is therefore
detrimental to any move toward a more politically workable,
culturally pluralist future for the country, north and south’ (Foster
1997: 158). It is Foster’s participation in this ongoing, and sometimes
fraught, process, that Heaney sees as being of value. Revisionism par-
ticipates in what might be called the deconstruction of a monological
historical narrative, bringing out the strains, fractures, aporias and
antinomies that have been attenuated by the narrative sweep.
Indeed, part of my thesis in this book will be that from a philo-
sophical, and arguably methodological standpoint, this type of
revisionism is allied to deconstruction, specifically the work of
Jacques Derrida, who also focuses on neglected strands of discourses
in order to bring out other narratives, histories and perspectives; as
he puts it ‘marginal, fringe cases’ are important to the deconstructive
project as they almost ‘always constitute the most certain and most
decisive indices wherever essential conditions are to be grasped’
(Derrida 1988: 209). That Heaney should see Foster as ideally suited
to write Yeats’s biography is also significant in terms of his own intel-
lectual orientation. That he should be so affirmative of Foster’s
revisionist project indicates an identification with a thinker who has
engaged with the increasing complexities of socio-cultural identity
that have become definitive of the situation in Northern Ireland over
the past 30 years. That he should use this notion of ‘cultural
pluralism’ to adequate Foster with his subject, Yeats, is highly
significant in terms of Heaney’s own orientation on these issues. As
Heaney points out:

Nobody, therefore, was better qualified to write this book, which

follows Yeats into his fiftieth year, through a period of Irish history
when all the questions about national and cultural affiliation that
have come so desperately to the fore again in Northern Ireland
were being lived through in the rest of the country at both private
and public levels and leaving their indelible mark on Irish life. But
it was precisely because these crucial tensions had come to the
fore that Yeats, at fifty, began to set himself up as the representa-
tive Irish poet of his times – one whose ancestors included not
only a soldier who had fought for William of Orange at the Battle
of the Boyne at the end of the seventeenth century but also a
 Introduction 3

country scholar who was friends with the revolutionary Robert

Emmet at the beginning of the nineteenth. By invoking these
figures in 1914, in the introductory verses of a volume signifi-
cantly titled Responsibilities, Yeats was reminding his Irish
readership that he took the strain of both the major ideologies
that were exacerbating Irish political life in that critically
important year. (Heaney 1997: 158–9)

For Heaney, then, The Apprentice Mage saw a congruence between

two Irish intellectuals – Foster and Yeats – both of whom were keen
to avoid a singular, monocular vision of Irishness and instead to
embrace a more pluralistic and complicated construction of what it
means to be Irish. Revisionism involves pluralising the narrative of
history and Yeats, too, was involved in such a process. Discussing
the mooted destruction of Nelson’s Pillar, in 1923, Yeats argued that
the monument ‘should not be broken up’ as it represented the
‘feeling of Protestant Ireland for a man who helped to break the
power of Napoleon’. Interestingly, Yeats goes on to explain his reasons
for his view, noting that the ‘life and work of the people who erected
it is part of our tradition’, and concluding his remarks with the telling
assertion: ‘I think we should accept the whole past of this nation and
not pick and choose’ (Evening Telegraph, 25 August 1923). The
unravelling of different strands is again a feature of this perspective.
That Heaney should be attracted by such complex and creative
allegiance to a notion of a revisioned Ireland, and that he should
also be attracted by the intellectual position of Foster, serves as an
index of his own commitment to a similar range of ideas. Throughout
his writing, in both poetry and prose, he will stress the duality and
necessity for interaction and intersection of notions of selfhood and
notions of alterity. As he put it elsewhere: the locating of one’s
identity in ‘the ethnic and liturgical habits of one’s group’ is all very
well, but for that group to ‘confine the range of one’s growth’ and ‘to
have one’s sympathies determined and one’s responses programmed’
by that group, is clearly a ‘form of entrapment’ (1985: 6–7), an
entrapment which defines place and identity in extremely narrow
terms, and which is a polar opposite of the discourse of poetry as
Heaney sees it. As Heaney puts it in The Redress of Poetry, poetry has
to be ‘a working model of inclusive consciousness. It should not
simplify’ (1995a: 8), and this desire to express the complexity of inter-
subjective relationships is the connecting thread that binds Heaney,
Foster, Yeats and, I would also suggest, Derrida.
4 Seamus Heaney

All of these writers have endeavoured to avoid those ‘forms of

entrapment’ of which Heaney spoke and instead, have looked for
broader symbolic enunciations of individual and cultural identity,
and in his Atlantic Monthly review, he stresses this admirable aspect
of Yeats as icon:

As a Yeats, he belonged to the respectable stratum of Protestant

Irish society that owed its position and power to William of
Orange’s victory and its consequences – the establishment of an
Anglo-Irish ascendancy and the institution of penal laws against
the Catholic population. So as a Yeats he might have been expected
to support the cause of the union of Ireland with the other British
nations under the English crown. But as an Irish poet who had
written a manifesto aligning himself with Irish Nationalist
precursors such as Thomas Davis and James Clarence Mangan, as
the author of the early, inflammatory ‘rebel’ play Cathleen Ni
Houlihan, as the chief inventor of the Celtic Twilight and a
founding member of the Abbey Theatre, which claimed to be the
country’s national theatre, Yeats had long been creating a vision
of Ireland as an independent cultural entity, a state of mind as
much as a nation-state, one founded on indigenous myths and
attitudes and beliefs that pre-dated not only William of Orange
but even Saint Patrick himself. (Heaney 1997: 159)

The idea of the nation as a ‘state of mind’ is a recurring trope in con-

temporary cultural discourse. Heaney has made the point in his
sequence ‘Squarings’ from Seeing Things, that places are always open
to different naming paradigms; indeed that places are created by such
paradigms:

In famous poems by the sage Han Shan,

Cold Mountain is a place that can also mean
A state of mind. Or different states of mind

At different times. (1991: 97)

It is this embracing of the difference that is at the heart of the nation

that further unites these writers as they all, in different ways, look to
more pluralistic and complex structurations of society and culture.
Not seeing nationhood or identity as either predestined or given,
instead they see it as something to be created through language and
 Introduction 5

imagery, and I would suggest that Heaney and Derrida follow Yeats’s
idea of the importance of a dialogue between notions of selfhood
and notions of alterity. Ireland as a ‘state of mind’ is a concept that
is transformative of the givens of identity, in any ideological group,
and it is this ongoing transformation that will take the strain of
conflicting ideologies and, possibly, create new structures which will
allow these ideological and cultural positions to interact, intersect
and enter some form of dialogue with each other which may allow
for some dissipation of the conflict.
It is with this idea of taking the strain of conflicting and diverse
ideological positions that I return to the question posed in the first
paragraph of this introduction, as to the raison d’être of this book. I
think, in the light of Heaney’s comments on Foster and Yeats, that
a strand of his thinking can be traced which engages with these
notions of complexity of identity, hybridity and liminality in terms
of the situating of the text of selfhood within the context of one’s
cultural associations and predications. His praise of the methodology
used by Foster also contains the glimmerings of my own modus
operandi in this book, as I will offer parallel analyses of Heaney’s
poetry and prose, the latter being a glaring lacuna in what might be
termed ‘Heaney studies’ over the years. Until now, I would suggest,
Heaney’s prose has been generally used as a preparatory gloss on his
poetry; it has never been subjected to any sustained critique in terms
of its role in Heaney’s overall project. This book will redress this
balance by taking specific themes in his writing, most notably
concerned with issues of identity, belonging, ideology and the role
of the aesthetic with respect to the political, and examine them
through a sustained study of both his poetry and his prose.
Finally, the connections I have made between the disciplines of
historical revisionism and deconstruction presage another thematic
strand of this book, namely the adequation of the ideas of Heaney
and Derrida with respect to the notions of reading, writing, cultural
discourse and ideology. If nothing else, this articulation has the virtue
of being an unploughed part of the Heaney canon, and it also
demonstrates, as I hope to show, that Heaney needs to be addressed
as a cultural thinker as well as an artist in terms of his involvement
in themes so seminal to the cultural narration of a contemporary
form of Irishness. In both his poetry and his prose, Heaney partici-
pates in a transformative discourse which exfoliates the fixed
ideological positions of Catholic-nationalist-republican and
Protestant-loyalist-unionist by probing their borders, their points of
6 Seamus Heaney

limitation. By then locating these within broader and more expansive

contexts, Heaney’s writing transforms points of closure into points
of opening to the other. Working at the level of the individual con-
sciousness, Heaney gradually creates the plural, complex and fluid
‘state of mind’ of an Ireland which is open to its future.
At the end of his ‘Frontiers of Writing’ essay, Heaney quotes from
Roy Foster’s earlier book Paddy & Mr. Punch, citing the idea that we
‘need not give up our own claims on Irishness in order to conceive
of it as a flexible definition. And in an age of exclusivist jihads to
east and west, the notion that people can reconcile more than one
cultural identity may have much to recommend it’ (Foster 1993:
xvi–xvii). It is this complexity of perspective that attracts Heaney to
Yeats, and which, I will suggest, creates a strand in his work which
enacts Colin Graham’s concept of deconstructing Ireland:

The conclusion which this book edges towards is that ‘Ireland’

stages its own deconstruction and that at every turn the idea
unravels and reforms itself, always in anticipation of the next act
of definition and criticism which, like this one, will be inade-
quately applied to it. (Graham 2001: x)

‘Revisionism’, ‘deconstruction’, ‘different states of mind’ ‘flexibility

of definition’ or pluralism: what all of these terms have in common
is a desire to enunciate the complexity of Irish culture and society
through the different strands of identity and to focus on the creation
of this plural form of identity instead of being fixated on the givens
of the past. It is this ongoing theme that will be discussed in the
coming chapters.
Chapter 1 deals with the theories of selfhood and alterity that run
through Heaney’s prose writings. These are seen as being organised
around some central questions posed in Preoccupations as to the role
of poetry within society and culture. The chapter also examines the
interaction and intersection of tropes of selfhood and alterity in
Heaney’s writing as well as his focus on the emancipatory aspects of
writing. Heaney addresses these questions, in both poetry and prose,
throughout his writing. The second chapter deals with Heaney’s
theory of poetry, specifically in terms of the dialectical interchange
between different identitarian positions in Northern Ireland.
Connections are made between his experience of internal exile and
that of Derrida in Algeria, with these concrete images of travel and
crossings used to extrapolate a particular strain in the work of both
 Introduction 7

writers as they create plural and complex structures within which

the binary oppositions can interact and inform each other, in the
name of what Heaney describes as the need to accommodate ‘two
opposing notions of truthfulness simultaneously’ (1985: 4). Poetry as
a vehicle for the achievement of such a structure is examined in
poems from The Haw Lantern, Seeing Things and The Spirit Level, as
well as in essays from Preoccupations, where his notions of ‘continuous
adjudication’ and a ‘field of force’ are first expressed.
Chapter 3 focuses on the transformative effect which poetry can
bring to reality and actuality in terms of subverting, and amplifying,
the givens with which our culture presents us. This chapter discusses
the effects of poetry as a dialectical structure on both writer and
reader, looking at the title essay and ‘Frontiers of Writing’ in The
Redress of Poetry, as well as at his Nobel lecture Crediting Poetry.
Parallels between Heaney and Derrida in terms of concepts of
identity, responsibility, liminality and the fluidity of borders will also
be discussed.
The fourth chapter examines the transformative interaction of
poetry and politics, examining the creative ambiguity in the phrase
‘government of the tongue’, and then developing this analysis to
examine some of his poetry and prose which attempt to transform
signifiers which have a hegemonic attachment to a particular
tradition into indices of plurality and complexity. Connections are
made between his work and that of Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas.
These include some of the placename poems from Wintering Out as
well as the almost programmatic example of a poem involving the
interaction of self and other: ‘The Other Side’, read in tandem with
‘The Pitchfork’ in Seeing Things. ‘The Flight Path’, from The Spirit
Level, is read in terms of a transformation of the individual in terms
of political allegiance.
The fifth chapter deals with the deconstruction of notions of place,
particularly with how placenames specifically associated with
nationalist ideology, are recontextualised in order to open different
paths of signification. These names are significant in terms of the
Heaney canon – Toome, Mossbawn, Glanmore – and are read in terms
of Derrida’s presence/absence conceit, and in terms of Heaney’s own
resonant image of a creative space which stood where a chestnut tree
had stood, an image traced from an essay in The Government of the
Tongue, through some poems in The Haw Lantern. This reading of
absence as a creative source is paralleled with Maurice Blanchot’s The
Space of Literature.
8 Seamus Heaney

The sixth chapter parallels the fifth by deconstructing different

aspects of language which have been associated with a particular
tradition in Northern Ireland. By examining different signifiers that
would seem to have a nationalist or Gaelic association, and by teasing
out Heaney’s deconstruction of this aspect of their etymology as he
brings the signifier into the ambit of the other tradition, his ongoing
pluralisation of language is foregrounded. Specifically, the complexity
of language as it is experienced in art is discussed, ranging through
Heaney’s poetry and prose.
Chapter 7 examines the influence and interaction of Heaney’s
work with that of another Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet, one with
whom he has often been compared. I refer, of course, to William
Butler Yeats. Heaney has written of his debt to Yeats, and in this
chapter, we will examine the ethical similarities between these writers
in terms of their views on the role of the aesthetic with respect to
the politic, as well as in terms of their attitude to the complexities of
identity. The Nobel lectures of each writer will also be compared in
terms of their attitudes to the place of writing in society.
In his essay ‘Vision and Irony in Recent Irish Poetry’, published
in The Place of Writing, Heaney stresses the relationship between the
poet and his or her cultural context in ideal terms: ‘as poets, they
comprehend both the solidarities of their own group and the need
to subvert them’ (1989: 49). It is this complexity of response that
will be the terminus ad quem towards which Heaney’s ongoing
searches for answers will be directed.
Index
absence (see also presence), 7, 20,
52–3, 62, 90, 114–16, 118, 119,
121–2, 127, 128, 130, 160, 161,
167, 177
Adorno, Theodor, 23, 49, 68
aesthetic (see also poetry), 5, 8, 11,
14–15, 19, 27, 32, 44–5, 48, 56,
58, 64, 74–5, 78–9, 95, 99, 102,
105–7, 112, 135–6, 138, 147,
157, 160–3, 168, 170, 171–9
aesthetics, 14, 45
Algeria (see also Derrida), 6, 36–7
alterity (see also other), 3, 5, 6, 24,
31, 37, 39, 42, 53, 66, 69, 78,
80, 86, 88–9, 95, 97, 102, 105,
107, 109, 122–3, 136, 142, 148,
150, 152, 177, 180–2
anastomosis, 16–19, 22, 28, 45, 47,
49, 52, 54, 72, 74, 78, 82, 85,
94, 103, 144, 146, 149, 152,
171–3, 180, 182
Andrews, Elmer, 9, 84, 94, 97, 184
Icon Critical Guide, 9
Anglo-Saxon, 19, 135
Annwn, David, 97
Antrim, County, 125
Ashcroft, Bill, 138
atavism, 31, 43–6, 71–2, 97, 100,
133
Atlantic Monthly, 1, 4
Auseinandersetzung, 14
Austen, Jane, 32
Bakhtin, Michael, 16, 20, 23
Barrell, John, 15, 22
Barrell, John and John Bull (eds)
The Penguin Book of English
Pastoral Verse, 18
Barthes, Roland, 34
bawn (see also Mossbawn), 17, 93,
122
Belfast, 34–5, 37, 42, 43, 44, 45,
102, 104, 125, 154, 159, 171
206
Bellaghy, 32, 34, 35, 131
Benjamin, Walter, 49
Bennington, Geoffrey, 35, 144
Bhabha, Homi, 141–2
The Location of Culture, 141
binarism, 7, 17, 20, 22, 25, 30–1,
36, 37, 39, 41–5, 54, 55, 59,
62–6, 86, 87, 92, 96, 99, 116,
124, 135–9, 145, 154–5, 174,
180
Blanchot, Maurice, 7, 25, 28, 50,
114–18, 131, 161, 167, 178–9
The Gaze of Orpheus, 7, 115
The Space of Literature, 7, 115
bog people, 98–9
border (se also frontier), 5, 7, 20–7,
50, 65–9, 86–7, 96, 114, 140–3,
146–9, 152–3, 159–60, 182
both/and (see also either/or), 149,
172
Boyne, Battle of (see also William of
Orange; Protestantism), 2, 41
Bradley, Catherine, 32, 38, 42, 52,
56, 62, 64, 76, 154, 161, 181
sampler, 32, 38, 42, 52, 56, 62,
64, 76, 78, 154, 161, 181
Brewster, Scott, 88–9
Britannic, 155, 162
British (see also English), 32, 124,
148, 153–4, 166
Broadbridge, Edward, 99
Brown, Richard, 169, 172, 182
Bull, John, 15, 22
Burns, Robert, 174
Burris, Sidney, 57
Caputo, John D., 37
Carson, Ciarán, 49, 134
Catholic (see also Protestant), 4, 5,
25–6, 32, 34, 41, 45, 51, 61, 87,
92, 97, 99, 101, 104, 109, 134,
136, 141, 152, 174
Christ, Jesus, 59, 60

Christianity, 31, 97, 112, 166
Clare, John, 163–4
community (see also society), 25–6,
45, 47, 50–1, 77–8, 82–3, 86–7,
98–9, 101, 103–4, 109, 117,
121, 128, 141, 147, 172
consciousness, 3, 6, 26, 28, 31, 40,
42, 44, 47–8, 51, 54, 56–7,
62–5, 72–5, 78, 80, 83, 85, 103,
107, 110, 113, 118, 130, 134,
139, 143, 149, 152, 156, 170,
172, 175, 177
constellation, 49, 50, 52, 54, 58–9,
63, 66, 74, 108, 147, 149
Corcoran, Neil, 9, 12, 31, 32, 36, 39,
42, 63–4, 68, 184
Corkery, Daniel, 136–7, 144
Critchley, Simon, 39, 88, 106
critique, 5, 18, 21, 37, 47, 98, 147,
151
Crotty, Patrick, 17
Cruise O’Brien, Conor, 98
culture (see also society), 1–2, 4–8,
13–19, 22–3, 28, 33–8, 41–3,
51, 59, 65, 67, 70, 75–6, 83–8,
93–5, 112–13, 115, 117, 121–4,
130, 134, 136, 138, 141–2,
144–5, 148–55, 159, 163–70,
174, 176–7, 180–1
Dante, 61, 132
Deane, Seamus, 172
deconstruction (see also Derrida), 2,
5–8, 18, 24, 35, 40, 66, 85, 88,
96, 99–102, 110, 122–3, 127–38,
144–8, 150–1, 154, 175, 181
Derrida, Jacques, 2–7, 12–13, 17,
19–24, 31, 33–9, 50–5, 60,
65–70, 72, 74, 76–7, 79, 85,
89–92, 96, 98–105, 108, 110,
114–16, 121–8, 130, 137–44,
147–8, 161–7, 173, 180–2
Acts of Literature, 72, 121
Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, 89–90
‘Biodegradables’, 85
Deconstruction and Criticism, 21, 22
Deconstruction and the Other, 148
Deconstruction in a Nutshell, 70,
79, 108, 110, 123–4
Index 207
Demeure: Fiction and Testimony,
115, 147
différance, 33, 35–6, 38, 52, 74,
144
Dissemination, 122–3, 253
Limited Inc, 2, 19
Margins of Philosophy, 143–4
Mémoires For Paul de Man, 96
Monolingualism and the Other,
138, 181
Of Grammatology, 53
Of Hospitality, 182
Of Spirit, 37
‘On Responsibility’, 147
Points, 36, 77
Positions, 20, 23, 33
Specters of Marx, 98
Speech and Phenomena, 127
supplement, 9, 137
The Ear of the Other, 70
The Other Heading, 36, 70
The Politics of Friendship, 76
Writing and Difference, 66
Derry, 37, 74–5, 92, 94, 103, 112,
125, 136, 139
dialectic (see also anastomosis), 6–7,
14–20, 22–5, 30, 32, 37–45,
47–53, 58, 61–2, 64, 66, 70,
72–9, 100, 128–9, 133, 137,
149, 163, 167, 177–81
dialogue, 5, 37, 59, 66, 102, 130,
139, 146
Docherty, Thomas, 10
Eagleton, Terry, 98
education, 31, 40, 51, 136, 145,
152, 158–9
either/or (see also both/and), 92,
149, 172
Eliot, T.S., 13, 160, 184
Elizabethan, 17, 145
Ellmann, Richard, 61, 169
enculturation, 112, 132, 166–7
England, 20, 30, 39, 66, 135, 145,
153, 155, 172
English (see also British; Britannic),
4, 9, 12, 15–22, 29, 31, 33–6,
58, 66, 88, 94–5, 113, 122, 130,
132–9, 143–6, 149–53, 171–2
208 Seamus Heaney
entrapment, 3, 4, 45–7, 146
epiphany, 109, 137
ethics, 8, 11, 14, 24, 26, 31, 37–47,
66, 68, 69, 73, 74, 75–80,
88–90, 92–5, 101, 105–6, 108,
133, 152, 177
ethnicity, 3, 45, 47, 169, 181
Europe, 14, 19, 24, 36, 75, 98–9,
105–6, 143, 151–3
Fennell, Desmond, 23, 102
field of force (see also Kraftfeldt), 7,
15, 23, 25, 30, 35, 40–4, 49–56,
59–65, 68–73, 75–80, 82, 84,
100–1, 104–5, 110, 113, 132,
135, 138–9, 143–6, 149–50,
154, 160–1, 177, 181–2
Foster, Roy, 1–6, 26–7, 156
Paddy & Mr. Punch, 6
The Apprentice Mage, 1, 3
Foster, Thomas C., 27
France, 19–20, 22, 36–7, 113, 132
Freud, Sigmund, 34
Heimlich, 36
Unheimlich, 36
frontier (see also border), 21–2,
25–7, 65, 68–9, 73, 79, 87, 91,
98, 147, 149–50, 165, 182
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 39
Gaelic (see also Irish), 1, 8, 29, 34,
40, 67, 93, 95–6, 122, 137,
144–5, 153–4, 168
genre, 14–16, 19–22, 40, 49, 79,
100, 167, 174
Gibbons, Luke, 54
Glanmore (see also Field Work;
Electric Light), 7, 124–31, 147,
171
glissement, 12, 95
god, 49, 68, 129, 141, 178
goddess, 44, 49, 97–9, 134
Graham, Colin, 6, 123–4
Greece, 11, 19, 31, 38, 40, 43, 74,
121–2, 130–1, 139, 152, 163
Haffenden, John, 57, 103
Hammond, David, 50, 82, 104–5,
184
harmony, 25, 49, 74, 159, 163
Hart, Henry, 27, 68
Havel, Vaclav, 51, 147
Heaney, Seamus (works),
Among Schoolchildren, 13, 32, 136,
157–62
‘lachtar’, 140–4, 147–9, 151,
154
Beowulf, 31, 101, 148, 169
bog poems, 97–8, 100
Crediting Poetry, 7, 13, 75, 77,
109, 126, 143, 171, 177
Death of a Naturalist, 24, 29, 37,
90
‘Churning Day’, 33, 95
‘Digging’, 34, 41, 94
‘Docker’, 45, 47
‘Orange Drums, Tyrone, 1966’,
45, 47
‘Thatcher’, 33, 95
‘The Diviner’, 33
Door into the Dark, 29, 90, 120–1
‘A Lough Neagh Sequence’,
124–5
‘Requiem for the Croppies’, 13
Electric Light, 19, 31, 118, 121,
130–2
‘Glanmore Eclogue’, 134–5
‘Known World’, 23, 136
‘Sonnets from Hellas’, 135
‘The Gaeltacht’, 136
Field Work, 31, 43, 125, 129
‘A Postcard from North
Antrim’, 129
‘Casualty’, 129
‘Glanmore Sonnets’, 128, 130
‘The Strand at Lough Beg’, 129
Finders Keepers, 13, 25, 154, 180
‘Something to Write Home
About’, 72, 143, 148, 152
‘Through-Other Places,
Through-Other Times: The
Irish Poet and Britain’, 152
North, 30, 31, 47, 54, 67, 71, 84,
86, 93, 97, 100–3, 108, 122,
124–5, 133–4, 150
‘Belderg’, 126
‘Bone Dreams’, 139
‘Exposure’, 71, 109–10

‘Kinship’, 48, 49, 51, 76,
101–2, 137
‘Punishment’, 101, 137
‘Viking Dublin: Trial Pieces’,
138
‘Whatever You Say Say
Nothing’, 107, 110
Place and Displacement, 13, 32, 38
Preoccupations, 6–9, 11–15, 20,
29–30, 36, 41, 65, 71–2, 82, 84,
94–6, 99, 121–2, 139, 157, 163,
164, 180, 184
‘Feeling into Words’, 49, 88
‘In the Country of
Convention’, 19, 24
‘Mossbawn’, 11, 21, 41, 45, 93,
97, 121–2, 125–6, 129, 131,
139, 143, 151, 167, 181
Seeing Things, 4, 7, 31, 53, 67, 90,
126
‘A Haul’, 58
‘Glanmore Revisited’, 128, 130
‘Markings’, 57, 71, 84, 111
‘The Golden Bough’, 58
‘The Pitchfork’, 11, 94, 96, 99
‘The Point’, 58
‘The Pulse’, 58
‘Three Drawings’, 58
‘Wheels within Wheels’, 60
‘Crossings’, 65, 72
‘Lightenings’, 69, 72, 146
‘Settings’, 72, 77
‘Squarings’, 8, 68, 71–2, 104,
111
Sweeney Astray, 31, 101, 130, 175
The Cure at Troy, 31, 52, 101
The Government of the Tongue, 7,
9–10, 13, 28, 46, 60, 62, 79, 81,
85, 184
‘Sounding Auden’, 165
‘The Placeless Heaven: Another
Look at Kavanagh’, 117
The Haw Lantern, 7, 9, 10, 26, 40,
68, 116, 140
‘A Daylight Art’, 120
‘Alphabets’, 44, 47
‘Clearances’, 118, 120
‘From the Frontier of Writing’,
30
Index 209
‘Terminus’, 72, 133, 144, 146,
148, 151–2, 158–9
‘The Disappearing Island’, 119
‘The Stone Grinder’, 120
‘The Wishing Tree’, 118
The Midnight Verdict, 43, 101
The Place of Writing, 8, 13, 165
The Redress of Poetry, 3, 7, 13, 24,
28, 42, 48, 59, 61, 64, 70, 102,
150, 184
‘Frontiers of Writing’, 10–11,
78, 158
‘Joy or Night: Last Things in
the Poetry of W. B. Yeats and
Philip Larkin’, 52
The Spirit Level, 7, 56, 101
‘Postscript’, 61
‘The Flight Path’, 11, 111–13,
116
‘The Swing’, 62–3
‘Tollund’, 61–2, 101, 103
‘Weighing In’, 60, 84
Wintering Out, 7, 30, 82–3, 86, 93,
100–4, 117, 121, 124, 156
‘A New Song’, 22
‘Anahorish’, 20, 24, 97–100,
122, 151
‘Broagh’, 20, 24, 97–100, 122,
151
‘Fodder’, 89
‘The Other Side’, 11, 29, 90,
92–6, 99, 172
‘The Tollund Man’, 61, 101
‘Toome’, 11, 121–6, 151
‘Traditions’, 21
hegemony, 7, 75, 123–4, 126, 133
Herbert, George, 59, 64, 66
Herbert, Zbigniew, 10, 11
Hillis Miller, J., 16, 22, 24
The Ethics of Reading, 16
history, 1–5, 11–14, 18, 36, 49, 52,
55–9, 72, 77, 82, 87, 95, 111,
113, 115–19, 124, 134, 137–8,
145–56, 159, 164, 166, 170
hoke, 139–40, 145, 147, 150
home, 17, 33, 36, 39–40, 57–9, 92,
95, 97, 108, 112–13, 117–18,
120, 122–6, 131, 136, 139, 148,
154, 163, 171, 177, 182
210 Seamus Heaney
Homer, 67, 129–30, 152, 164
Hopkins, Gerald Manley, 65
Hughes, Francis (see also Provisional
IRA), 74
Hughes, Ted, 55, 155
hybridity (see also liminality), 5, 17,
36, 124, 138–49, 153, 165, 171,
182
identity (see also selfhood) , 2–8, 14,
17–19, 23-29, 32–40, 45, 47,
50, 53, 57, 65–6, 69–70, 76,
82–8, 90, 92, 94, 97–100, 104,
109, 113, 122–3, 128, 133, 136,
141–8, 152, 165, 173–82
ideology (see also consciousness;
culture), 5, 7, 25, 33, 38, 41–5,
66–7, 71, 81, 83, 86–7, 90–1,
97–8, 101, 104, 109, 112,
115–24, 132, 134–5, 138, 144,
147, 149, 152–5, 159–63, 168,
172–6, 180
imagination, 25, 37, 53, 55, 59, 63,
70, 92, 94, 104, 107, 117, 123,
139, 164–5, 184
immanence, 47, 61, 92, 176–8
inclusiveness, 3, 25, 28, 42, 56, 75,
97, 103, 118, 134, 141, 145,
156, 163
internment, 67
intersubjectivity, 3, 24, 43, 46, 65,
89, 90
Ireland (see also identity), 2–8, 13, 18,
20, 25–6, 29–32, 38–40, 49–51,
62, 66, 76–7, 80, 82, 86–90,
92–3, 98–105, 112, 118, 123–5,
128, 131–2, 135, 137, 140, 142,
145–59, 166, 168, 170–6
Ireland, Northern, 2, 6, 8, 13, 25–6,
31–2, 38–40, 50–1, 62, 76–7,
80, 82, 86–7, 90, 92, 98–100,
103, 105, 112, 118, 125, 128,
140, 142, 149, 153, 172, 176
Irelandness, prior (see also
quincunx), 150
Irishness, 1–10, 14, 16–22, 24, 29,
31–9, 43, 46, 51, 55–8, 66, 84,
88, 90, 95–9, 102, 107, 112–13,
117, 122–6, 130–56, 158,
165–6, 171–8
James, Clive, 4, 44, 97, 141, 151,
156
Jay, Martin, 23
Joyce, James, 16–18, 44, 151–2, 165
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man, 44, 97, 152
Ulysses, 18, 151–2, 165
justice, 24, 40, 52, 60–1, 69, 72, 79,
171, 174, 176, 179
Kavanagh, Patrick, 21, 113
Kearney, Hugh, 155
Kearney, Richard, 66, 88, 155
Kiberd, Declan, 29, 30
Inventing Ireland, 29
Kingsmills massacre, 77, 176
Kraftfeldt (see also field of force), 23,
25, 56, 62–3, 73, 76, 105
Kristeva, Julia, 52
Lacan, Jacques, 34
lace, Brussels, 52–3, 60, 62, 79
land, 15, 24, 45, 82, 93, 98, 107,
115, 120, 123, 134–5, 141–7,
171
language, 2, 4, 8, 14–23, 29, 31,
33–7, 41, 51–3, 57, 65, 69–81,
84–8, 90, 92–6, 101–2, 112,
117, 121–7, 130–44, 147–8,
150–5, 159–69, 172–5, 179–84
Latin, 19–20, 22, 40, 45, 117, 130,
138
Levinas, Emmanuel (see also ethics),
7, 37, 48, 76, 88, 89–95, 102,
106, 109–10, 168, 180
liminality (see also hybridity), 5, 7,
24–7, 36, 143–8, 153
Lloyd, David, 98
locus, 18, 42, 45, 55, 121, 126–31,
150, 164, 167
London, 36, 49, 143, 149
Londonderry, 112
Longley, Edna, 50, 82, 87, 134
Lowell, Robert, 161
loyalism, 5, 32, 99, 104, 171
lyric, 14, 26, 34, 60, 62, 130
MacNeice, Louis, 21, 83, 150–3
Carrickfergus Castle, 151

Mandelstam, Nadezhda, 47, 105
Mandelstam, Osip, 28, 47, 52–3,
105, 164
Marxism, 15, 21
McDonald, Peter, 58, 116
meaning, 11, 16–17, 20, 24, 28–9,
34–5, 38, 40, 52–3, 66, 73–4,
82, 84, 96, 99–101, 104, 114,
117, 121, 126–32, 134, 140–4,
154, 160, 162–3, 166
memory, 37, 42, 50, 54, 68, 104,
110, 119, 127, 135, 139, 156
Mendelson, Edward, 10
Merriman, Brian, 43
metaphor, 11, 13–14, 19, 26, 30, 45,
53, 60–5, 75, 115, 122, 138–9,
161, 178
metonym, 86, 144, 182
Miller, Karl, 16, 22, 24, 181
Milosz, Czeslaw, 79
Molino, Michael, 26
Montague, John, 21
Morrison, Blake, 29, 84, 103, 134
Mossbawn, 7, 17, 41, 93, 121–7,
139, 147, 163, 177
Murphy, Andrew, 9
Murphy, Mike, 125, 175
nationalism (see also Irishness;
identity), 1, 5, 7–8, 32, 34, 39,
50, 70, 81–4, 89, 94, 98–9, 101,
104, 112, 121–2, 133–7, 140,
154, 156, 168, 172–5
Ni Houlihan, Cathleen, 4, 29, 49, 98,
157, 172
Nobel Prize, 8, 9, 75
Norman, 150, 165, 166, 168
Norris, Christopher, 11
omphalos, 121, 122, 163
origin, 22, 34, 37, 57, 62, 113, 127,
131, 136–8, 142, 144, 172
oscillation, 15, 33, 35, 38, 42, 63–4,
70–4, 79
other (see also alterity), 2, 4–9, 11–21,
23, 26–7, 29–30, 33, 35–9, 41–2,
44–5, 47–50, 52–3, 55–6, 58, 63,
65–70, 73–4, 76–80, 82–4, 86,
87–96, 98, 101, 104–6, 108–9,
Index 211
112, 114, 118–28, 131, 134,
137–9, 141, 144, 146–57, 159,
161–3, 166–7, 171–2, 174,
176–7, 180–2, 184
Parker, Michael, 82
pastoral, 15–16, 18–22, 94, 130
peace process, 90
perspective, 2–3, 6, 10–11, 14–16,
19, 22, 24–5, 30–1, 36, 41–3,
47–50, 52, 55–6, 64–5, 68, 79,
82, 84, 93, 100–3, 105, 108,
120, 135–6, 138, 152–5, 169
Pinsky, Robert, 69
place (see also land; home;
Irishness), 1, 3–4, 7–8, 10–16,
22, 24, 29, 31, 36–40, 45, 47,
51, 54, 57, 63, 66, 71–4, 81–9,
93–8, 100–1, 104, 107, 110–32,
134–44, 147, 149, 151–4,
158–69, 171, 173, 176–8,
180–1, 184
planter, 122
plurality (see also hybridity;
liminality; subjectivity), 2, 7,
15, 19, 48, 51, 92, 93, 100,
120, 123, 133, 135, 138, 140–1,
147, 152
poetry, 1, 3, 5–14, 16, 18, 19–31,
34–7, 40–3, 46–56, 58–85, 93,
95, 97–108, 110, 112, 113, 115,
118–21, 124, 129–34, 139–40,
143, 146–52, 154–7, 159–76,
178–84
poetry, epistemology of (see also
aesthetic), 13–15, 21–2, 25, 29,
31, 34, 37–8, 40, 45–9, 54,
59–64, 67, 71, 73–4, 79–80, 82,
101–2, 110, 115, 134, 138–9,
146, 151, 154, 157, 161, 173,
177–9, 182
politics (see also ethics;
nationalism), 3, 5, 7, 10,
13–14, 20–6, 30, 31, 38–9,
42–7, 50–1, 54, 60, 63, 71–6,
78, 80–3, 86–8, 90, 93–5,
97–109, 112–13, 118–19,
122–4, 134–5, 137–9, 142,
146–52, 154–6, 162–3, 165,
171–8, 180, 184
212 Seamus Heaney
polyglossic, 31, 123
postcolonialism, 124
presence (see also absence), 7, 14,
34–5, 39, 44, 48, 52–3, 57, 62,
69, 93, 98, 116, 119, 121,
127–8, 130, 137, 151, 159, 177
prose (see also poetry; genre), 1, 3,
5–14, 23–4, 29, 31, 78, 81, 94,
121, 157, 171, 179–80, 184
prosopopeia, 135
Protestantism (see also Catholicism),
3–5, 32, 41, 45, 51, 77, 83,
86–8, 92, 99, 151
Provisional IRA, 50–1, 74, 77, 83,
97, 104, 108, 125, 133, 159,
171
quincunx (see also Yeats, Spenser,
MacNeice; Joyce), 24, 150–4,
165–8, 181
Raftery, Anthony, 168
Randall, James, 125
Rapaport, Herman, 17, 115, 139
republicanism (see also Provisional
IRA; nationalism), 5, 32, 97–9,
134–5
responsibility (see also ethics), 7, 24,
37–8, 42, 48, 69, 76, 79, 90–2,
107, 109–10, 116, 123–4, 184
revisionism, 1, 2, 5
rhyme, 42, 52, 63–4, 67, 126, 129,
146, 165, 167, 169–70, 179
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 168
Rodgers, W.R., 83, 149, 150
sectarianism (see also politics;
nationalism), 31, 41, 46–7, 49,
77–8, 91–2, 97, 99, 101, 104,
134, 167
self (see also subject – the ‘I’; other;
alterity), 3, 5–7, 15, 18, 26–7,
33–8, 40–5, 48, 50, 53, 55,
57–9, 62, 64, 67–70, 73–80, 86,
90, 95–9, 105–10, 114–15, 118,
120, 123, 125, 130, 136, 141–2,
148, 150, 152, 159, 161, 163,
168, 171, 174–7, 180, 181, 182
Shakespeare, William, 1, 17, 18, 33,
136, 152
Hamlet, 1
signified, 32, 34–5, 38, 51, 119, 135,
144, 162, 164, 179
signifier, 8, 34, 51, 94–5, 106, 112,
119, 122, 126, 131–2, 134–40,
143–4, 147, 154–5, 162–4, 179
Simmons, James, 97
Smyth, Gerry, 136
Spenser, Edmund, 16, 93, 150–2
Kilcolman Castle, 150
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 53, 56
strike, hunger, 74, 83, 160, 179
subject – the ‘I’, 1–2, 12, 19, 30,
33–4, 40, 42–5, 47–8, 54–6,
62–3, 67, 72, 76–7, 82–3, 85,
87, 98, 105, 108, 109–10, 117,
119–21, 127, 129, 139–42, 152,
162, 174, 181
Sweden, 176
symbol, 4, 17, 32, 50, 57, 59, 71,
77–8, 84, 90–1, 99–100, 107,
114, 118–20, 127, 137–8, 142,
147, 150–1, 163–7, 174
synecdoche, 16, 43, 63, 65, 130,
135, 148, 152, 161, 174
Synge, John Millington, 21, 174, 176
The Playboy of the Western World,
175
Tacitus, 44–5, 98
Tamplin, Ronald, 9, 94
teleology, 1, 12, 15, 34, 67, 78
Terminus, 68, 129, 140–8, 154–5
territory (see also home; land), 49,
122, 175
text (see also context), 5, 13, 15–16,
19–29, 34, 39, 45, 50, 52–4, 62,
73–4, 76, 82, 85, 89, 92, 94, 99,
103, 106, 121, 144, 154, 171–5,
180
theory, 6, 11–14, 23–4, 29–34, 45,
68, 74, 124, 180, 184
through-otherness (see also field of
force; ethics), 96, 148–53, 155,
163, 166, 171, 180–2
Tobin, Daniel, 26, 68
Tóibín, Colm, 10

tradition, 3, 7–8, 12, 14–18, 20, 32,
36, 41–2, 51, 67, 69, 81, 84–5,
95–7, 109, 117, 120–6, 131,
139–40, 145, 149–56, 159,
166–9
transcendence, 46, 52, 61, 72, 92,
108, 110, 113, 147, 160–3, 168,
170, 176, 180
transformation, 5, 7, 14–15, 25–6,
29, 47, 51, 55, 56, 63–6, 70, 77,
82, 84–5, 107, 110, 112, 116,
120–3, 128, 130, 132, 145, 152,
168–9, 173–6, 182
translation (see also language),
16–17, 19–20, 22, 43, 54, 61,
65, 94–6, 101, 130, 148, 169
tribal, 39, 47, 57, 80–2, 84, 97,
107–9, 128, 133–4
trope, 4, 6, 16–17, 22, 27, 29, 54–5,
58, 63, 67, 90–1, 126, 127, 132,
134, 137, 144, 148, 152
Troubles, the, 103
Ulster, 26, 30–3, 38, 39, 52, 64,
76–8, 82, 83, 97, 122, 149
unionism (see also Protestantism), 5,
32, 39, 50, 99, 112, 140, 174
university, 33, 163
value, 2, 13, 21, 23, 28, 31, 38, 59,
62, 72, 76, 108, 134, 148, 155,
157–61, 164–5, 170, 176,
181–2
Vendler, Helen, 13, 26, 101–2
Index 213
Viking, 134–5
Virgil, 16, 54, 130
vocable, 66
vowel, 66, 95
Weil, Simone, 72
William of Orange, 2, 4, 41, 49,
141, 151
Carrickfergus Castle, 151
Williams, Raymond, 15
Wolfreys, Julian, 24
Wordsworth, William, 30, 31, 113
writing (see also language, poetry,
prose), 1, 3, 5–16, 19, 21,
23–31, 36–8, 40–1, 43, 45–8,
50, 52, 56, 58, 60–9, 73, 75–82,
85, 90, 93, 98, 100, 107–8, 110,
114–15, 125, 133, 144, 147,
150–7, 160, 162, 164–5,
167–73, 177–84
Yeats, William Butler, 1–6, 8, 14, 22,
24, 30, 46, 48, 55, 60–2, 150–3,
155–81
‘Easter 1916’, 50
‘Meditations in Time of Civil
War’, 170–1, 183
‘The Fisherman’, 59
‘The Man and the Echo’, 174,
176, 177
Cathleen Ni Houlihan, 53, 102
The Irish Dramatic Movement, 175
Thoor Ballylee, 154, 169, 171
Young, Robert, 141