Secondary Sources: a Gloss on the Critical Reception of Seamus Heaney 1965-1993
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Colby Quarterly Volume 30 Issue 1 March Article 8 March 1994 Secondary Sources: A Gloss on the Critical Reception of Seamus Heaney 1965-1993 Rand Brandes Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq Recommended Citation Colby Quarterly, Volume 30, no.1, March 1994, p.63-77 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Quarterly by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Colby. Brandes: Secondary Sources: A Gloss on the Critical Reception of Seamus He Secondary Sources: A Gloss on the Critical Reception ofSeamus Heaney 1965-19931 by RAND BRANDES "SHAKESPEARE TAKES second place to Seamus Heaney as the writer whose name appears most in English Literature courses at polytechnics and colleges ofhigher education [in Britain]" announces the 1992 Guardian Inter national article.2 Toppling Shakespeare on his home turfis no small task. While it may be more to the point to ask which institutions did not teach the Bard, Heaney's preeminence on syllabi across the imperial isle signifies the phenom enal international appeal of the Irish poet. Readers of contemporary poetry written in English should not be surprised that Seamus Heaney is one ofthe most often taught (contemporary) writers in England and perhaps in the English speaking world, notably in America. Heaney's institutional and canonical stature is matched by the immense international scholarly reception ofhis work and by the almost fanatical media coverage ofhis professional life in Ireland and England. More critical and media attention has been focused on Heaney and his work than any other contemporary Irish poet and perhaps any other poet in the English-speaking world outside of America in the last thirty years. Since the first reviews of his 1965 publication Eleven Poems to the recent publication of The Midnight Verdict (Gallery Press, 1993), over 20 full-length studies (books, pamphlets, and collections ofessays) ofHeaney's writing have appeared; nearly 50 dissertations in which he is a major figure; dozens of interviews; hundreds of articles; and even more reviews, profiles, and notices. These relative figures do not include the myriad ofarticles, collections ofessays, and books on Heaney circulating or going to press or the endless number of conference papers presented on his work around the world. The debate still continues as to whether Heaney's international reputation has opened or closed doors for other Irish poets. Whatever the conclusion, this exposure has not been without its professional and private costs, as Heaney comments in a 1991 interview: "Too late did I realize that everything like this [the interview] is in a 1. This essay is derived from a longer collaborative work in progress with Michael 1. Durkan, Seamus Heaney: A Reference Guide (G.K. Hall, 1994). 2. James Meikle, "To Be, Or Not to Be on Syllabus," The Guardian International Friday, April 10, 1992: 1. The survey was conducted for the Standing Conference of English in Polytechnics and Colleges of Higher Education of which "75 per cent took part." 63 Published by Digital Commons @ Colby, 1994 1 Colby Quarterly, Vol. 30, Iss. 1 [1994], Art. 8 64 COLBY QUARTERLY way stealing from me, comme artiste. ... so it's a condition of complete self destruction [he laughs]."3 The extremecondition ofthe poet's self-deconstruction is seen in another interview in which he says that he has been interviewed so many times that "I don't even believe I was born on a farm in Derry anymore."4 If Heaney feels that he has been buried alive under paper after having been strung up in classrooms around the world and then X-rayed by the critics, he has good reason. A forthcoming annotated bibliography of Heaney criticism con tains approximately 2,000 entries, which include citations not only from schol arly studies, but also from reviews, interviews, newspaper articles, notices and profiles. In the following pages I will gloss this mass ofmaterial. It is impossible to give the full bibliographical citation for every reference mentioned, and I have rounded off statistics since the bibliography is in progress and new items are found daily. Finally, I have attempted to capture the distinctive elements and general character of the criticism of Heaney's work as I see it. Given the mass of writing on Heaney, any number of alternative readings could be made and conclusions drawn. These will certainly follow with time. What one will notice overall is how few negative or heavily guarded reactions there have been to Heaney's work. In this essay I acknowledge these critiques as an important part of literary history and as an attempt to keep my own enthusiasm in check. The secondary Heaney materials I examine, when taken together, do have theoretical implications, especially in terms of literary production, cultural reproductions, and canonical constructions-issues beyond the scope of this essay. The immense critical focus on Heaney's poetry, beyond any inherent quality/value of the poetry itself, is certainly affected by market forces in the publishing world, audience expectations regarding subject matter and form, and the institutionalization of the work itself. In some ways the extensive critical reception ofHeaney's work is a historical phenomenon related to changes in the academy, technology, and· publishing. Who, why, where, how, when, and what one writes on Heaney is more than a matter ofinterestin the poetry. Each critical response bears the imprintofits occasion and its history. Theprojected audience, for example, will affect the writing; thus, critics writing in Ireland for a mostly Irish audience work from a different set of assumptions when writing about Heaney's poetry than, for example, American critics for American audiences. Whether one critical perspective has advantages over another is a compli cated issue. Certainly, critics writing in different countries have access to different primary materials as well as secondary sources. Thus a bibliography attached to a book on Heaney published in England or Ireland may not include references that an American critic would consider essential for a thorough understanding of a particular critical issue or vice versa. Consequently, while some Irish critics may complain (but rarely in print) that American critics (or even British critics) have missed the point and have not done their homework when writing on Heaney, often the reverse charge could be made. This is not to 3. Ian Hargreaves, "Ulster Dog Gnaws at Ireland's Shadows," Financial Times June I, 1991. 4. Eileen Battersby, "Sometimes a Great Notion," Irish Times Sept. 29, 1990, "Weekend": 5. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq/vol30/iss1/8 2 Brandes: Secondary Sources: A Gloss on the Critical Reception of Seamus He RAND BRANDES 65 privilege one cultural perspective and framework over another, but to emphasize the difficulty in discussing the diverse international response to Heaney's work and the need for a comprehensive bibliography of Heaney criticism. Even though Heaney himself initially rejected the notion that the vast international interest in contemporary Irish poetry is related to the Troubles, he has more recently agreed with those who argue that many (international) critics are attracted to Irish poetry because of the eroticism of the politics in the North and the post-colonial buzz. "But we cannot be unaware, at this stage ofour lives, ofthe link between the political glamour ofthe place (Ulster), the sex-appeal of violence, and the prominence accorded to the poets. There was certainly some journalistic help there."5 In particular, critics are attracted to the cultural politics of contemporary Irish poetry because of its unresolved condition. Ireland appears as a never never land where dreams can come true or where nightmares can beexplored with the horrifiedpleasureofthe voyeur. In addition, discussions around contemporary Irish poetry often light upon women's writing and class politics, topics of great international concern. Interest in Heaney's writing is directly related to the broader framework ofIrish poetry and culture, even ifthis culture is ignored or simplified. The more recent studies ofHeaney's work have attempted to come to terms with the complex cultural constructs informing the poetry, especially in terms of post-colonial forces. These highly theoretical studies are far away from the initial 1960's reviews of Heaney's poetry which described the poems' subject matter and points of view and speculated on the poet's potential. In 1964 Heaney sent his manuscript, Advancements of Learning, to the Dolmen Press. This manuscript was the result of a flurry ofpublications in the early sixties. What was to become Death ofa Naturalist did not appear until 1966. In this interval Heaney received his first critical attention with Eleven Poems (1965) published as part ofthe Poetry in Pamphlets series in conjunction with the Belfast Arts Festival. In 1965 Heaney appeared in a handful ofreviews and articles. One of the most engaging of the earliest articles was a profile of Heaney which appeared in Vogue in September 1965 written by the poet's sister in-law, Polly Devlin. In her profile ofthe poet (which also includes four poems by Heaney), Devlin mentions her first encounter with Heaney in 1962, referring specifically to the poet's agile "wit."6 Also in SeptemberHeaney's Eleven Poems was mentioned in a Belfast Telegraph review. This initial notice was followed by Heaney's longtime supporter John Carey's glowing review ofEleven Poems in the New Statesman on December 31, 1965. Heaney had published poems in the New Statesman and had already received word that Death ofa Naturalist would be published the next year; consequently, Eleven Poems was immediately overshadowed by Death ofa Naturalist. Although Eavan Boland cited only Eleven Poems in her January 1966 article 5. Tom Adair, "Calling the Tune," The Linen Hall Review 6.2 (Autumn 1989): 5.