Hermit Songs Heaney dedicates his nine-poem sequence to long-time friend, American academic and author Helen Vendler. He celebrates those who have demonstrated resolute dedication to ‘books’ and scholarship, who have shut themselves off to a greater or lesser degree from wider society. Some hermit-scholars are legendary and monastic, scribes of illuminated texts; other ‘greats’ are much more recent. With characteristic modesty, Heaney includes his own experiences as part of the chain. The introductory couplet sets out the price of scholarship: its scholar-scribe has shut himself away to follow the mechanics of medieval manuscript production with its ruled quires. Secluded in his [...]