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    A Study Guide for Seamus Heaney's "The Singer's House"
    A Study Guide for Seamus Heaney's "The Singer's House"
    A Study Guide for Seamus Heaney's "The Singer's House"
    Ebook39 pages28 minutes

    A Study Guide for Seamus Heaney's "The Singer's House"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Seamus Heaney's "The Singer's House," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 26, 2016
    ISBN9781535839549
    A Study Guide for Seamus Heaney's "The Singer's House"

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      A Study Guide for Seamus Heaney's "The Singer's House" - Gale

      1

      The Singer's House

      Seamus Heaney

      1979

      Introduction

      Seamus Heaney's poem, The Singer's House was first published in his 1979 volume of poetry, Field Work, which was published in both England and America that year. The volume marked a departure from Heaney's earlier poetry volumes, most of which had addressed the modern conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland—often referred to as the Troubles—in an indirect way. However, many of the poems in the new volume, which were written during a period of self-exile from Northern Ireland, demonstrated Heaney's more concentrated attempts to define his role in the Irish conflict. For this reason, many critics singled out Field Work as the transitional point in Heaney's poetry career.

      In The Singer's House, Heaney uses his poetic abilities to appeal to another artist—his singer friend, David Hammond. The poem was written after Hammond canceled a recording session, following a terrorist bombing. Heaney wanted to encourage Hammond that his voice counts, and that it was important for Hammond to inspire his fellow Irish countrymen and -women with his songs. Heaney was hoping to inspire a revival in Irish language and literature, which had been largely replaced over the centuries by the language and culture of British colonizers. A current copy of the poem can be found in Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966–1996, which was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1999. This collection also includes the lecture that Heaney gave after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.

      Author Biography

      Seamus Heaney was born in Mossbawn, in County Derry, in Northern Ireland on April 13, 1939, the same year that Irish poet William Butler Yeats died. This coincidence has been noted by many critics, who often compare Heaney's poetry with that of Yeats. Although he was born Catholic in predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland, the 1947 Education Act gave Heaney—along with other Northern Catholics—the opportunity to pursue secondary education that had been previously closed to them. When he was eleven years old, Heaney received a scholarship to study at Saint Columb's College in Derry (also known as Londonderry). In 1957, Heaney attended Queen's University in Belfast, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1961—with First Class Honors in English. The following year, after a year of postgraduate study, Heaney was awarded his teaching certificate from the St. Joseph's College of Education in Belfast.

      While he was in college, Heaney contributed

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