Seamus Justin HeaneyMRIA (/ˈʃeɪməs ˈhiːni/; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.[1][2] Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Heaney was recognized as one of the principal contributors to poetry during his lifetime. American poet Robert Lowell described him as “the most important Irish poet since Yeats“, and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was “the greatest poet of our age”.[3][4]Robert Pinsky has stated that “with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller.”[5] Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as “probably the best-known poet in the world”.
Books in order of publication:
Poetry: main collections
- 1966: Death of a Naturalist, Faber & Faber
- 1969: Door into the Dark, Faber & Faber
- 1972: Wintering Out, Faber & Faber
- 1975: North, Faber & Faber
- 1979: Field Work, Faber & Faber
- 1984: Station Island, Faber & Faber
- 1987: The Haw Lantern, Faber & Faber
- 1991: Seeing Things, Faber & Faber
- 1996: The Spirit Level, Faber & Faber
- 2001: Electric Light, Faber & Faber
- 2006: District and Circle, Faber & Faber
- 2010: Human Chain, Faber & Faber
Poetry: selected editions
- 1980: Selected Poems 1965–1975, Faber & Faber
- 1990: New Selected Poems 1966–1987, Faber & Faber
- 1998: Opened Ground: Poems 1966–1996, Faber & Faber
- 2014: New Selected Poems 1988–2013, Faber & Faber
- 2018: 100 Poems, Faber & Faber
Prose: main collections
- 1980: Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978, Faber & Faber
- 1988: The Government of the Tongue, Faber & Faber
- 1995: The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures, Faber & Faber
Prose: selected editions
- 2002: Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971–2001, Faber & Faber
Plays
- 1990: The Cure at Troy: A version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Field Day
- 2004: The Burial at Thebes: A version of Sophocles’ Antigone, Faber & Faber
Translations
- 1983: Sweeney Astray: A version from the Irish, Field Day
- 1992: Sweeney’s Flight (with Rachel Giese, photographer), Faber & Faber
- 1993: The Midnight Verdict: Translations from the Irish of Brian Merriman and from the Metamorphoses of Ovid, Gallery Press
- 1995: Laments, a cycle of Polish Renaissance elegies by Jan Kochanowski, translated with Stanisław Barańczak, Faber & Faber
- 1999: Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, Faber & Faber
- 1999: Diary of One Who Vanished, a song cycle by Leoš Janáček of poems by Ozef Kalda, Faber & Faber
- 2009: The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables, Faber & Faber
- 2016: “Aeneid: Book VI”, Faber & Faber[110]