Abstract
This essay carefully analyses an important facet of T.S. Eliot's influence on Heaney, namely their shared understanding of the auditory imagination. Heaney looks to Eliot's auditory imagination to help him accomplish three vital poetic tasks: sounding the dark places of the earth, discovering a luminescence within these dark places, and inspiring poetry even when his dark surroundings threaten to silence his art. After accomplishing this analysis through close readings of a wide selection of Heaney's prose and poetry, the essay presents detailed, original readings of Heaney's neglected ‘A Lough Neagh Sequence’. These readings practically illustrate the operation of Heaney's auditory imagination and the significance of his poetry's aural elements.
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