Abstract
Appearing in a special issue of 'Irish Universities Review' entitled 'Poems that Matter 1950-2000', this essay is a close analysis of Seamus Heaney's long poem, 'Mycenae Lookout' in his collection The Spirit Level (1996). The essay treats the poem in the light of its relation to contemporary history, and shows how the classical narrative is crossed with the pressure of history and politics in the 1990s to produce 'a poem that matters', one which reacts against the apparently tragic pattern of history and the inhuman assumptions of the current cult of desperation and extremism.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 358-367 |
| Journal | Irish University Review |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 1 Sept 2009 |
Keywords
- Seamus Heaney
- contemporary Irish poetry
- poems that matter
- poems with classical themes
