Seamus Heaney, Virgil and the Good of Poetry

The first book-length study of Heaney's dialogue with Virgil, one of Seamus Heaney's major literary exemplars Offers a close reading of Heaney's engagement in Virgil, with particular focus on the latter part of his career, from the mid-1980s onward Explores Heaney's dialogue with Virgil in relation to his reading of other writers, ancient, medieval and modern Considers the full corpus of Heaney's writing including translations, original poems, prose writing and radio interviews This book demonstrates the ways in which Virgil's are poems that Heaney 'lived with long and dreamily', especially the descent into the underworld in Aeneid VI. It shows that in his original English poems as well as his translations from Latin, Heaney conjures and transforms familiar Virgilian motifs. The rhythm, pace and musicality of Virgil's hexameters can be heard in Heaney's pastoral eclogues and sonnet sequences. And Virgil's life and times, as well as his poetry, contribute to the shaping of Heaney's prose poetics. In dialogue with Virgil, as well as other classical and modern poets, Heaney develops his notion of the redress of poetry: the counterbalance that poetry can offer against historical tragedy, suffering and loss. The book explores Heaney's intensely productive, thirty-year dialogue with Virgil, beginning with his translation of 'The Golden Bough' in the 1980s and extending through several major volumes, including Seeing Things, The Midnight Verdict, Electric Light, District and Circle, The Riverbank Field, Human Chain, and the posthumously published translation of Aeneid Book VI.