Seamus Heaney and American Poetry (New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature)

"This book examines the influence of American poetry on Seamus Heaneys achievement by close attention to the themes, style, and resonances of his poetry at different stages of his career, including his appointments in Berkeley and Harvard. Beginning with an examination of Heaneys education at Queens University, this study presents comparative close readings which explore the influence of five American poets he read during this period: Robert Frost, John Crowe Ransom, Theodore Roethke, Robert Lowell, and Elizabeth Bishop. Laverty demonstrates how Heaney returned to several of these poets in response to difficulty and to consolidate later aesthetic developments. Heaneys ambivalent critical treatment of Sylvia Plath is investigated, as is his partial misreading of Bishop, who is understood today more sensitively than in her lifetime. This study also probes the reasons for his elision of other prominent American writers, making this the first comprehensive assessment of American influence on Heaneys poetry. Dr Christopher Laverty is an academic researcher based at Queens University, Belfast, where he completed his PhD in 2019. His work has been published in Twentieth-century Literature, Irish Studies Review, and Estudios Irlandeses."--Page 4 of cover Acknowledgements Contents Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction: America and Northern Ireland II III IV Chapter 2: Belfast: Heaney in the 1960s I II III Chapter 3: California 1970–1971 II Chapter 4: Together and Apart: Heaney and Lowell II III Chapter 5: The Walk on Air: Heaney and Bishop II III Chapter 6: American Poetry and Heaney’s Final Works II III IV V Chapter 7: Conclusion II Bibliography Primary Poetry Prose Interviews MSS & Archive Sources Secondary Index