Questioning tradition, language, and myth
Subtitle: the poetry of Seamus Heaney
By: Michael R. Molino.
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 215
Subjects: Heaney, Seamus -- Criticism and interpretation; Northern Ireland -- In literature
Description: Seamus Heaney, often cited by critics as one of the most important poets writing in English since World War II, has long deserved an integrated critical study such as Michael R. Molino has written here. Questioning Tradition, Language, and Myth provides a detailed examination of Heaney's poetry and the political and cultural problems facing literary writers in Ireland today.

Molino demonstrates that Heaney has had to come to terms with a literary tradition that is both a continuation of the past and a break from it. Heaney's poetry springs from a complex cultural debate that is often voiced in monologic terms by groups dedicated to defining an exclusive "Irish" tradition. Yet many Irish writers recognize not one but many competing and irreconcilable traditions whose collective, polyphonic voices are often in destructive conflict with one another.

Molino rejects the notion that Heaney burrows into archetypes in hopes of discovering or reviving a lost origin or lost ties to the past; he also rejects the notion that Heaney turns to the past in order to evade current political and cultural conflicts facing Ireland. In the author's view, Heaney explores the multiplicity of voices that constitute Ireland's traditions, literature, and history.

Amid these voices the British question lingers, as Heaney must acknowledge a debt to the British literary tradition while recognizing Britain's long history of hegemony in Ireland. This comprehensive, up-to-date study is founded in a variety of critical and theoretical sources, including Heaney's own critical and creative writing, the standard critical assessments of Heaney's poetry, and the influential theoretical writings that emphasize poststructural, social-text, or postcolonial analysis.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-212) and index.