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Canvassing the Poet Seamus Heaney’s Many Sides

It is unusual to read about a male poet of Heaney’s generation who seems so even-tempered. Edward O’Shea’s own quietly confident prose is a good match for his subject.

Bernard Gotfryd, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons
Seamus Heaney at New York, November 1, 1982. Bernard Gotfryd, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

‘Seamus Heaney’s American Odyssey’
By Edward O’Shea
Routledge, 226 pages

Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) spent a good part of 40 years teaching in this country, yet he remained an Irishman, having been raised in Northern Ireland and living there as well as in the Southern Republic.

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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