Part Three: Sweeney Redivivus
To critics who judged the Station Island sequence to be ‘dark’ and ‘sullen’ Heaney responded as follows: I don’t think I could have done it any other way… The poet in me just had to work through the material that was lying piled up in the middle of the road. Then, if you’ll excuse the expression, he lightened up and got a bit of lift-off in Sweeney Redevivus (the legendary exiled Sweeney spends most of his time airborne)(DOD p240). Heaney confirms a ‘far more confident and unapologetic ( ) tone) than the Station Island sequence; I felt ‘up and away ( ) at full tilt. Reckless and accurate and entirely Sweenified as capable of muck-raking as of self-mockery. The poetry […]