The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #152043   Message #4213325
Posted By: Big Al Whittle
10-Dec-24 - 12:42 PM
Thread Name: Obit: Poet Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
Subject: RE: Obit: Poet Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
Less than Yeats.... not for me.
anyway its not a competition.

He wasn't nationalistic, He was profound and saw the violence as a repulsive but organic component in his nation's identity. There was no mysticism and very few arty farty references to the classics.

The violence was terrible enough, but when it re-emerged, there wasn't much beauty involved. He was too earthy, too genuinely fond of his fellow men to be lulled into seeing 'a terrible beauty'.