Seamus Heaney and Catholicism

The book explores how Catholicism operates in Seamus Heaney's poetry at the level of a felt sense. It is written in an accessible style and so will be of interest not only to an academic audience, but to the intelligent lay reader who is interested in poetry and or theology.

Seamus Heaney and Catholicism makes extensive use of unpublished material to offer fresh insights into Heaney's complex engagement with Catholicism. Gary Wade explores how Catholicism operates in ways other than social and political, which have largely been the focus of critics up until now. Using extensive unpublished material, including early drafts of some familiar poems, it offers close readings which explore how Catholicism operates at the level of feeling, and how it continued to have an emotional purchase on Heaney long after he had left behind orthodox practice. It also engages with Heaney's increasing concern, in his later work, with the loss of a metaphysical sensibility, and his turning to the Roman poet Virgil to deal with questions of death and post-mortem existence. The book concludes by arguing that Heaney's Catholicism is displaced rather than rejected, and that his vision expands to accommodate both the Christian and the Classical worlds.