Seamus Heaney and the place of writing

Abstract

This study examines the attitude toward place and home in the works of Seamus Heaney. O'Brien looks at the political role of Heaney's writing, arguing that his complex engagement with these issues creates a pluralist and emancipatory sense of Irish identity predicated on the future, not the past. O'Brien's book traces an isolated theme in Heaney's work - the creation of a politics of place, language and identity. Unlike chronological studies of Heaney's poetry, O'Brien explores important elements in his entire oeuvre, from his poetry and prose to translations, such as Beowulf, that relate to the issue of writing and identity - strident nationalism, tribal identification, political ideology and post-colonial poetics in particular. A sustained engagement between literary theory and the work of Heaney, the book connects the ethical projects of Heaney and Derrida in terms of their views on the relationship between self and other, and between the past and present. A result of this reading of Heaney's poems is some innovative arguments: for example, O'Brien's examination of the poet's most famous book, North, views it as opening a dialogue with other traditions. Another emphasis is the Viking influences in his work. Finally, O'Brien examines the relationship between Heaney's texts and the violence in Northern Ireland that has been the environment of much of his writing.