In this volume of critical essays, Seamus Heaney scrutinizes the poetry of many masterful poets. Throughout the collection, Heaney's gifts as a wise and genial reader are exercised with characteristic exactness, and we are reminded, above all, of the essentially gratifying nature of poetry itself.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The 20th century saw the emergence of the poet as witnessvoicing solidarity with the doomed, the victimized, the dispossessed. Irish poet Heaney here gauges this trend in essays on Wilfred Owen, Osip Mandelstam, Zbigniew Herbert. He admits that the power of the poem to change the world is almost nil. Then, turning to T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, he affirms the healing value of poetry as its own vindicating force, restoring us to our true selves. Interrelated essays investigate the ways in which W. H. Auden, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath each became an "antenna," getting beyond the ego to voice the spiritual yearnings and anxieties of our time. Heaney has a fine ear for Derek Walcott's lush Caribbean verse, which he calls "a common resource," and for "the wire-sculpture economy" of Miroslaw Holub's games of knowledge. Beautifully written, these essays and reviews reconfirm poets as unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"The 20th century saw the emergence of the poet as witnessvoicing solidarity with the doomed, the victimized, the dispossessed. Irish poet Heaney here gauges this trend in essays on Wilfred Owen, Osip Mandelstam, Zbigniew Herbert. He admits that the power of the poem to change the world is almost nil. Then, turning to T. S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land', he affirms the healing value of poetry as its own vindicating force, restoring us to our true selves. Interrelated essays investigate the ways in which W. H. Auden, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath each became an 'antenna,' getting beyond the ego to voice the spiritual yearnings and anxieties of our time. Heaney has a fine ear for Derek Walcott's lush Caribbean verse, which he calls 'a common resource,' and for 'the wire-sculpture economy' of Miroslaw Holub's games of knowledge. Beautifully written, these essays and reviews reconfirm poets as unacknowledged legislators of the world."—Publishers Weekly
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet.
|
|||
|
Video reviews
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
First Sentence:
In 1939, the year that Patrick Kavanagh arrived in Dublin, an aunt of mine planted a chestnut in a jam jar. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Sylvia Plath, Czeslaw Milosz, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Clarence Brown, Osip Mandelstam, The Waste Land, Ted Hughes, Life Studies, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Selected Poems, Thomas Kinsella, United States, Wilfred Owen, Anna Swir, Patrick Kavanagh, The Great Hunger, Alexei Tolstoi, Bruce Chatwin, Collected Poems, Fra Angelico, Robert Tracy, The Colossus, The Divine Comedy, The Star-Apple Kingdom New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
In 1939, the year that Patrick Kavanagh arrived in Dublin, an aunt of mine planted a chestnut in a jam jar. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Sylvia Plath, Czeslaw Milosz, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Clarence Brown, Osip Mandelstam, The Waste Land, Ted Hughes, Life Studies, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Selected Poems, Thomas Kinsella, United States, Wilfred Owen, Anna Swir, Patrick Kavanagh, The Great Hunger, Alexei Tolstoi, Bruce Chatwin, Collected Poems, Fra Angelico, Robert Tracy, The Colossus, The Divine Comedy, The Star-Apple Kingdom New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 20
books:
See all 20 books this book cites
21
books
cite this book:
See all 21 books citing this book
- Report from the Besieged City by Zbigniew Herbert on page 54, and Back Matter
- Journey to Armenia by Osip Mandelstam on page 71, and page 86
- Report from the Besieged City and Other Poems (Oxford Poets) by Zbigniew Herbert on page 54, and Back Matter
- Lord Weary's Castle: The Mills of the Kavanaughs (Harvest/HBJ Book) by Robert Lowell in Back Matter
- A Passage to India by E.M. Forster on page 15
See all 20 books this book cites
- Seamus Heaney (New Casebooks) by Michael Allen on 4 pages
- The Poetry of Seamus Heaney by Elmer Andrews in Front Matter, page 158, and Index
- English Romanticism and the Celtic World by Gerard Carruthers in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Index
- The Poetic Economies of England and Ireland, 1912-2000 by Dillon Johnston in Back Matter, and Index
- Using English: From Conversation to Canon (English Language: Past, Present and Future) by Janet Maybin in Back Matter
See all 21 books citing this book
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
