ABSTRACT

This book scrutinizes Heaney's language in order to examine his theory of poetry and the writer's responsibility to art and politics. The author, himself a poet, works chronologically through the poetry and discusses it in light of Heaney's writings on the appropriate language of poetry. Chapters also look at Heaney's language and at the government of the tongue.

chapter |24 pages

Introduction

‘An art that knows its mind’

chapter 1|31 pages

English or Irish Lyric? (1960s Heaney)

chapter 2|32 pages

Phonetics and Feeling

Wintering Out, North and Field Work (1970s Heaney)

chapter 3|20 pages

‘The limbo of lost words’

The Sweeney Complex

chapter 4|27 pages

Beyond the Alphabet

The Haw Lantern and Seeing Things

chapter 5|18 pages

Heaney’s ars poetica

Mandelstam, Dante and The Government of the Tongue

chapter |3 pages

Conclusion