Seamus heaney biography mid term break
Seamus Heaney
Irish poet (–)
Seamus Justin HeaneyMRIA (13 April &#;– 30 August ) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (), his first major published volume. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats", and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was "the greatest poet of our age".Robert Pinsky has stated that "with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller." Upon his death in , The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".
Heaney was born in the townland of Tamniaran between Castledawson and Toomebridge, Northern Ireland. His family moved to nearby Bellaghy when he was a boy. He became a lecturer at St. Joseph's College in Belfast in the early s, after attending Queen's University, and began to publish poetry. He lived in Sandymount, Dublin, from until his death. He lived part-time in the United States from to He was a professor at Harvard from to , and their Poet in Residence from to From to , he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In he was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in was bestowed the title Saoi of Aosdána. He received numerous prestigious awards.
Heaney is buried at St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. The headstone bears the epitaph "Walk on air against your better judgement", from his poem "The Gravel Walks".
Early life
Wearing a poppy bruise on the left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four-foot box, a foot for every year.
from "Mid-Term break",
Death of a Naturalist ()
Heaney was born on 13 April at the family farmhouse called Mossbawn, between Castledawson and Toomebridge; he &#;&#; the most skilful and profound poet writing in English today.&#; Seamus Heaney is one of the most recognisable names in English-language poetry. It’s quite possible that you could hear his writerly voice as a child, study him as you get older (his poems are often anthologised or selected for GCSE and A Level study) and come to regard him as an old familiar friend through your adult life. Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in and turned down the position of Poet Laureate when it was offered to him, possibly because he regards himself as Irish, not British: after lunching with the Queen he said, “I have nothing against the Queen personally”; but in he published the lines, “My passport’s green/ No glass of ours was ever raised/ To toast the Queen.” Before his death in he wrote about Irish community life, people’s connection with the land (Storm on the Island; Bogland ), politics and history (particularly The Troubles), his own rural upbringing and journey to becoming a writer (Follower; Digging; Personal Helicon). A recognisable Heaney trait is filtering subject matter through a child’s looking-glass lens. His most famous poems (Death of a Naturalist and Blackberry Picking) are directly concerned with childhood, in particular the loss of childhood innocence as one grows older. Mid-Term Break (from the collection Death of a Naturalist, written in ) shares this theme, which it explores through recounting an experience from the poet’s own history; when Seamus Heaney was still a child, his younger brother Christopher was hit and killed by a car: About the Poet The celebrated Nobel Laureate poet, Seamus Heaney was born in in County Derry, Northern Ireland. He grew up on a farm and was one of nine children. He is well educated, having attained a first reading English at Queen's College, Belfast. He remained in Belfast and became a lecturer at St Joseph's College and later at Queen's College, and has lectured at various institutions since that time. Mid-term Break I sat all morning in the college sick bay In the porch I met my father crying - The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble' In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple. A four foot box, a foot for every year. This is an incredibly sad poem. The mood is set almost immediately in the second line: Counting bells knelling classes to a close. Notice how Heaney uses assonance and alliteration to emph Seamus Heaney (born ) is one of the most important poets in the 20th century. His stately and high-toned style and classical concerns with land and his roots have earned him recognition as the most accomplished and the most universally celebrated of Irish poets. He was born on a farm near Toomebridge, County Derry, Northern Ireland, the eldest of nine children. Heaney's father farmed cattle and helped run the family business while his mother kept the home. Seamus grew up at the time when political divisions were breaking down in Northern Ireland but it was also a time of intense sectarian violence. Heaney is a bog-trotter - the bogs of his native Derry are filled with open Irish secrets and therefore appeal to his precise and interrogative skills as a poet. The close-up, the far-off, and an awareness of the country stretching out towards the future informs much of his poetry. Unsurprisingly his early poetry is rich with images of the countryside, with fields, furrows, kitchens, stiles, plowing and catching disease from cattle. It is a poetry of nature infused with loss and violence; there is a dark, brooding, and sensual element that sounds in the blood and sleep rhythm of his pastoral music that speaks of earth as the flesh. When man is present, he is seen either in a priestly role or as he lies in the bog, dying and dying. His death is a consequence of the historical events that have thrown Heaney into his painful birthright. Even then, politics is never his subject, which encompasses earth and water and fire. Its subject is the human heart in its own place and the lovely voices celebrating it. His aim was to root his poetry in the soil, on which he was raised. In , James Russell Lowell Heaney married the only child of a Lough Neagh farmer and won first prize in the respected Ballinasloe Horse Show for the first time. In , their first son, Seamus Heaney, was b Seamus Heaney shares with us a sad memory from his childhood.
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying —
He had always taken funerals in his stride —
And Big Jim Evan
© Steve Campsall
This page contains:
Heaney has published several volumes of poetry including the award-winning Death of a Naturalist, Station Island, The Haw Lantern and more recently, Seeing Things. His poetry is usually quite accessible to readers of all types and he continues to be one of the most popular present-day poets.
Commentary
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At ten o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
He had always taken funerals in his stride -
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
Whispers informed strangers that I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
And candles soothed the bedside I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
He lay in a four foot box, as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. Mid-Term Break: Poetry of Seamus Heaney
1. Introduction to Seamus Heaney
Biography and Background