Seamus Heaney: A Brief Biography and Analysis

Seamus Heaney described himself as person who “emerged from a hidden, a buried life and entered the realm of education” (“Seamus Heaney”). This quotation showed him transforming from a poor child living in a depressed farm town in Northern Ireland to turning into a Nobel Peace Prize poet and professor. He was a postmodern and contemporary poet who changed the Catholic and Protestant conflict into a literary debate. Without influential unorthodox poets like Heaney, the revolution would have ended extremely changed. Seamus Heaney was a poet in a great deal of modern history from Neil Armstrong walking on the moon to modern day. Seamus Heaney was a product of the post modern and contemporary era, a time of rebellion in Northern Ireland, because his writing illustrated the literary characteristics of idealism and self-expression.

When Seamus Heaney started writing poetry, the feud between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants was getting heated, and by 1971 it had become a civil war (“Seamus Heaney- Biographical”). Civilian deaths were not uncommon in riots, and military barricades were being built. It was a time of intense war in Northern Ireland. The English army was trying to calm the citizens, but that made the problems much worse. The riots were bloody and often times resulted in deaths by the hundreds (“Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet”). The most famous day of the rebellion was the day deemed “Bloody Sunday” (“Seamus Heaney: “Casualty” ”). This was when the British Army attacked twenty-six unarmed citizens (“Seamus Heaney: “Casualty” ”). These citizen massacres made the conflict triple in size.

This time was also a time of segregation in the United States (“Significant Historical Events in the US from 1950-2013”). The Civil Rights...

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...’s ideas were very deep, thoughtful, and most of all free. In the lines “All free like the wind” and “Their imaginations have ruled their whims,” the freedom and imagination that is bursting through these children is evident. These children were the children of joy and love. At the end of the poem, the last five lines transition to when the children are older and how they have changed, but their idealism and innocence will hopefully be the same. This era shows us know that all those people with there high ideas and self- expression have changed the way we live today, from integration to simply creativeness unleashed. The post modern and contemporary era was one full of change and development, and without the special poets, such as Seamus Heaney, we would not have been able to read about the era when the poets lived , while learning about history in such a deep way.