Passage to the Center: Imagination and the Sacred in the Poetry of Seamus HeaneyNobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, author of nine collections of poetry and three volumes of influential essays, is regarded by many as the greatest Irish poet since Yeats. Passage to the Center is the most comprehensive critical treatment to date on Heaney's poetry and the first to study Heaney's entire body of work. It is also the first to examine the poems from the perspective of religion, one of Heaney's guiding preoccupations. According to Daniel Tobin, the growth of Heaney's poetry may be charted through the recurrent figure of "the center", a key image in the relationship that evolved over time between the poet and his inherited place, an evolution that involved the continual re-evaluation and re-vision of imaginative boundaries. |
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Page 23
... early poems is a world of masculine rituals that create a significant backdrop to Heaney's quest for self - definition . Nevertheless , even as he memorializes that world he defines himself in opposition to many of its customs . Indeed ...
... early poems is a world of masculine rituals that create a significant backdrop to Heaney's quest for self - definition . Nevertheless , even as he memorializes that world he defines himself in opposition to many of its customs . Indeed ...
Page 24
... early in the poem that the femi- nine ground itself calls for such cruelty , the dead kittens having been slung on the pump like sacrifices at an altar . A similar desire to expose the more violent aspect of masculine mastery occurs in ...
... early in the poem that the femi- nine ground itself calls for such cruelty , the dead kittens having been slung on the pump like sacrifices at an altar . A similar desire to expose the more violent aspect of masculine mastery occurs in ...
Page 273
... early poem , " The Given Note . " Now , more pointedly , the full ontological implications of Heaney's early intimation of music as a union of absence and presence takes hold of his imagination . “ Was music once a proof of God's ...
... early poem , " The Given Note . " Now , more pointedly , the full ontological implications of Heaney's early intimation of music as a union of absence and presence takes hold of his imagination . “ Was music once a proof of God's ...
Contents
List of Abbreviations | 14 |
Door into the Dark | 39 |
Wintering Out | 68 |
Copyright | |
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affirms allegory allusion artistic becomes brutal called consciousness Corcoran creation cultural cycle Dante's dark death displacement door early poems echoes emblem embody empty source envisions eternal return explore feminine Field figure finds forces Francis Ledwidge Grauballe ground Haw Lantern Heaney's early Heaney's imagination Heaney's poem Heaney's poetry Heaney's quest Heaney's sense human Ibid idea ideal identity immanence Interview Ireland Irish Irish language journey language liminal lines Lough Lough Beg Lough Neagh masculine memory metaphor Mircea Eliade myth mythic nature Nerthus North Northern Ireland numinous observes omphalos once origins parable paradox poem's poet poet's poetic political Potato Digging primal quest for self-definition reality relationship religious reveals rhythms ritual roots sacred center Seamus Heaney sectarian sense of place shape sonnet space Spirit Level Station Island suggests Sweeney symbol T.S. Eliot things tion Tollund trans transcendence transfigured transformed tribal violence vision voice words Yeats Yeats's