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Seamus Heaney
Heaney was winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. Robert Lowell has deemed Heaney "the most important Irish poet since Yeats." Critics have been largely positive about his verse, and he is undoubtedly the most popular poet writing in English today. His books sell by the tens of thousands, and hundreds of "Heaneyboppers" attend his readings. His earliest influences, Robert Frost and Ted Hughes, can be seen throughout his work, but most especially in his first two volumes, where he recollects images of his childhood at Mossbawn. Heaney's poetry appears in a kind of written epilogue to the film Voices in Wartime.
from "The Cure At Troy", based on Sophocles
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Questions for Reflection and Research: “The Cure at Troy”
The Cure of Troy is Seamus Heaney’s version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes.
- How might the verse above represent a conflict between a person’s personal and moral belief? How does it represent a symbolic call?
- Research Sophocles’ Philoctetes. Write a synopsis of the story.
- Read Heaney’s version of the story of Philoctetes, The Cure of Troy, and prepare a report on how the play emphasizes the struggles of how individuals work to discover and hold true to their beliefs