The government of the tongue : selected prose, 1978-1987

In this volume of critical essays, Seamus Heaney scrutinizes the poetry of many masterful poets. Throughout the collection, Heaney's gifts as a wise and genial reader are exercised with characteristic exactness, and we are reminded, above all, of the essentially gratifying nature of poetry itself. "In this thematically coherent book of critical essays selected from his prose writings since 'Preoccupations' (1984), Seamus Heaney scrutinizes the work of several poets, British and Irish, American and European. His subjects exemplify a devotion to the art of poetry that is complicated by their recognition of poetry's apparent indifference or ineffectuality in a world where suffering and injustice are prevalent. Their typical problem arises when they experience the gulf, which is always potentially there, between artistic integrity and other responsibilities, civic and humane. Heaney is also interested in writers' acceptance or rejection of these restraints, implicit or legislated, which societies tend to impose upon freedom of utterance. The book of 'The Government of the Tongue' carries suggestions of both monastic discipline and untrammelled romanticism, and is meant to raise an old question about the rights and status of poetic utterance itself. Should it be governed? Should it be the governor?" "In this book of critical essays selected from his prose writings since 'Preoccupations' (1980), Seamus Heaney scrutinizes the work of several poets, British and Irish, American and European. His subjects exemplify a devotion to the art of poetry that is complicated by their recognition of poetry's apparent indifference or ineffectuality in a world where suffering and injustice are prevalent. The artist fulfilled by the achievement of pure form may well be haunted by a feeling of betraying the beggar at the gate. Heaney is also interested in the writer's acceptance or rejection of those restraints, implicit or legislated, which societies tend to impose upon freedom of utterance. His title carries suggestions of both monastic discipline and untrammelled romanticism, and is meant to raise an old question about the rights and status of poetic utterance itself. Should it be governed? Should it be the governor?" --publisher's description, page [2] of jacket The author examines the poetry of Osip Mandelstam, Robert Lowell, Zbigniew Herbert, Sylvia Plath, W.H. Auden, Patrick Kavanagh, Derek Wolcott, Elizabeth Bishop, Miroslav Holub, and Philip Larkin as well the nature of poetry itself