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Seamus Heaney, Zbigniew Herbert, and the Moral Imperative

Seamus Heaney, Zbigniew Herbert, and the Moral Imperative Magdalena Kay One of the life-giving paradoxes of comparative influence is that looking outward for inspiration often results in a keener gaze inward: introspection directly benefits from extroversion. Thomas Docherty notes that Irish writers often look outward when they seem to be most introspective, adducing Yeats's fascination with Byzantium, Joyce's enthrallment with the Mediterranean, and, more recently, Paul Durcan's interest in seeing "home" from "elsewhere."1 It is almost truistic to find parallels between poets based on political situation, cultural context, literary movement, or simply thematics; yet what happens when a writer consciously reaches for influence from one whose life situation is not parallel, whose literary aims are entirely different, whose thematics may prove alienating, and whose poetic language is largely inaccessible? Extroversion need not result in the discovery of similitude. Seamus Heaney looked to the work of contemporary Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert in an effort to effect change in his own poetic; most saliently, he sought to deploy a metaphorical language of moral absolutes that is secular, abstracted from the childhood Catholicism that underlay his sense of right and wrong. Herbert's "dry form" allowed for a particular kind of ethical engagement that Heaney founnd difficult and yet salubrious. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Studies Penn State University Press

Seamus Heaney, Zbigniew Herbert, and the Moral Imperative

Comparative Literature Studies , Volume 50 (2) – May 31, 2013

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Publisher
Penn State University Press
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University.
ISSN
1528-4212
Publisher site
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Abstract

Magdalena Kay One of the life-giving paradoxes of comparative influence is that looking outward for inspiration often results in a keener gaze inward: introspection directly benefits from extroversion. Thomas Docherty notes that Irish writers often look outward when they seem to be most introspective, adducing Yeats's fascination with Byzantium, Joyce's enthrallment with the Mediterranean, and, more recently, Paul Durcan's interest in seeing "home" from "elsewhere."1 It is almost truistic to find parallels between poets based on political situation, cultural context, literary movement, or simply thematics; yet what happens when a writer consciously reaches for influence from one whose life situation is not parallel, whose literary aims are entirely different, whose thematics may prove alienating, and whose poetic language is largely inaccessible? Extroversion need not result in the discovery of similitude. Seamus Heaney looked to the work of contemporary Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert in an effort to effect change in his own poetic; most saliently, he sought to deploy a metaphorical language of moral absolutes that is secular, abstracted from the childhood Catholicism that underlay his sense of right and wrong. Herbert's "dry form" allowed for a particular kind of ethical engagement that Heaney founnd difficult and yet salubrious.

Journal

Comparative Literature StudiesPenn State University Press

Published: May 31, 2013

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