1 Seamus Heaney: Between Past and Future
he was revolted by the thought of known places
and dreamed strange migrations^1Seamus Heaney’s poetry provides a foundation for a more recent
generation of poets, in particular, Paul Muldoon and Medbh
McGuckian whom Heaney taught at Queen’s University Belfast, and
who simultaneously shrug off and bear the traces of his influence.
Exploring the changing nature of Heaney’s work, it becomes
necessary to read a younger generation of Northern poets in terms of
Heaney’s later poetry and vice versa. A shift can be identified in
Heaney’s poetic career as he moves from an early attention to the Irish
bogland in Wintering Out (1972) and North (1975) to poems from
Station Island (1984) onwards which take flight from preoccupations
on land.^2 Referring to the figure of mad Sweeney, the migrant bird
king, nomad and exile, the movement of Heaney’s poetry from ‘The
Tollund Man’ to ‘Tollund’ can be examined to assess how Heaney’s
poetry is placed between impulses to dig the past and fly the future.^3
1 This chapter was developed from a paper presented at the University of Kent
ëLiterature and Placeí Research Seminar on 11th March 1998, and a pre-
sentation given at Trinity College Dublin on 12th April 2000. I would like to
thank both my audiences for their questions and comments. In particular, thanks
to Declan Kiberd for his thought-provoking response. Cf. Seamus Heaney,
Sweeney Astray (London: Faber, 1983), p.9.
2 Heaney, Wintering Out (London: Faber, 1972); North (London: Faber, 1975);
Station Island (London: Faber, 1984).
3 Heaney, ëThe Tollund Maní, from Wintering Out, Selected Poems 1965ñ1975
(London: Faber, 1980), pp.78ñ9; ëTollundí, The Spirit Level (London: Faber,
1996), p.69.