Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney, MRIAwas an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer, and the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 April 1939
CityCastledawson, Northern Ireland
CountryIreland
mean warrior winning
It is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning. For every one of us, living in this world means waiting for our end. Let whoever can win glory before death. When a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark.
mean perception citizens
But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based.
country mean home
Not to Learn Irish is to miss the opportunity of understanding what life in this country has meant and could mean in a better future. It is to cut oneself off from ways of being at home. If we regard self-understanding, mutual understanding, imaginative enhancement, cultural diversity and a tolerant political atmosphereas a desirable attainments, we should remember that a knowledge of the Irish language is an essential element in their realisation.
hardy suppose thomas
I suppose you could say my father's world was Thomas Hardy and my mother's D.H. Lawrence.
conferred fact musically order poet quite repose satisfying seeking speaker stability strain towards uttered
But the thing uttered by the speaker I strain towards is still not quite the story of what is going on; it is more reflexive than that, because as a poet I am in fact straining towards a strain, seeking repose in the stability conferred by a musically satisfying order of sounds.
censure considers flourish itself qualified rhetoric vigilance
No place in the world prides itself more on its vigilance and realism, no place considers itself more qualified to censure any flourish of rhetoric or extravagance of aspiration.
art born brought devoted earnest experience ireland lived northern past quarter though towards
This temperamental disposition towards an art that was earnest and devoted to things as they are was corroborated by the experience of having been born and brought up in Northern Ireland and of having lived with that place even though I have lived out of it for the past quarter of a century.
advised glass ours raised surprised toast
Don't be surprised if I demur, for, be advised my passport's green. No glass of ours was ever raised to toast The Queen.
beings both conduct envisage exposure human inner moment reminder scary
It was like a moment of exposure to interstellar cold, a reminder of the scary element, both inner and outer, in which human beings must envisage and conduct their lives.
time
The wartime, in other words, was pre-reflective time for me. Pre-literate too. Pre-historical in its way.
best binge given tom type
One of the best descriptions of the type of writer I am was given by Tom Paulin, who described himself as a 'binge' writer - like a binge drinker. I go on binges.
changed electric hopkins intensity liked
I think the first little jolt I got was reading Gerard Manley Hopkins - I liked other poems... but Hopkins was kind of electric for me - he changed the rules with speech, and the whole intensity of the language was there and so on.
north
You can have Irish identity in the north and also have your Irish passport.
everybody famous half ireland maybe
What I've said before, only half in joke, is that everybody in Ireland is famous. Or, maybe better, say everybody is familiar.