The Poetics of Symbiosis: Reading Seamus Heaney's Major Works

Seamus Heaney is one of the most popular and controversial poets in contemporary Irish Literature. His poems were originally intended to address the struggles taking place in Northern Ireland but went on to go far beyond the local framework. Today his insights echo all over the world. The Poetics of Symbiosis closely examines and interprets Heaney's poetry in order to provide readers with a fuller understanding of the symbiotic connection that lies at the heart of this remarkable artist's work. Shigeru Ozawa makes a compelling case that Heaney believes that by addressing the duality of present and past, local and foreign, he can bring people together and thus more directly confront the underlying issues. In Heaney's poems, we find the symbiotic interaction of poet and readers in the cure of poetry. Thoroughly researched and immensely readable The Poetics of Symbiosis is a must-read for critics and fans alike.