Cultural Memory in Seamus Heaney’s Late Work

Cultural Memory in Seamus Heaney’s Late Work considers the ways that memory functions in Heaney’s poetry. Joanne Piavanini argues that the shaping of collective memory is one of Heaney’s major contributions as a poet. Locating Heaney in a transnational literary sphere, this book argues that his late work isdefined by a type of cosmopolitanism openness: the work moves beyond national identity to explore multiple allegiances and identifications. Moreover, Piavanini demonstrates that memory is a helpful lens to look at Heaney’s late work, in particular, because of the interplay of past, present and future in these works: in the construction of a collective memory of the Troubles; in the use of the elegy to commemorate the passing of important contemporary poets; in his writing on events with transnational significance, such as 9/11; in the slippages between past and present in poems about his family; and through the literary afterlives of texts—specifically, his appropriation of canonical classical texts. Drawing on approaches and concepts from memory studies, Piavanini considers Heaney’s late work to develop an analysis of poetry as a vehicle of memory.

• Seamus Heaney
• Irish poetry
• transnational poetry
• memory studies
• public poet
• cultural memory
• translation studies
• Beowulf
• British and Irish Literature

“Readers of poetry have reason to be thankful for the entirety of Heaneyʼs oeuvre, and this monograph furthers our understanding of one of the most accomplished and cherished poets to come out of Ireland.” (Charles I. Armstrong, Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 16, 2021)

• Independent Scholar, Mount Waverley, Australia

  Joanne Piavanini

Joanne Piavanini is an English teacher and independent researcher based in Melbourne, Australia. She completed her PhD at the Australian National University. 

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