{"product_id":"seamus-heaneys-gifts-hardcover","title":"Seamus Heaney's Gifts - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eHenry Hart\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The fact of the matter,\" Seamus Heaney said in a 1997 interview with the \u003ci\u003eParis Review, \u003c\/i\u003e \"is that the most unexpected and miraculous thing in my life was the arrival in it of poetry.\" Throughout his career, Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, maintained that poetry came to him from a mysterious source like a gift of grace. He also believed that the recipient of this sort of boon had an ethical obligation to share it with others. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eSeamus Heaney's Gifts, \u003c\/i\u003eby the noted scholar and poet Henry Hart, offers the first comprehensive examination of Heaney's preoccupation with gifts and gift-exchange. Drawing on extensive research in Heaney's papers, as well as three decades of correspondence with the poet, Hart presents a richly detailed study of Heaney's life and work that foregrounds the Irishman's commitment to the vocation of poetry as a public art to be shared with audiences and readers around the world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Heaney traced his devotion to gifts back to the actual present of a Conway Stewart fountain pen that his parents gave him at the age of twelve when he left his family farm in Northern Ireland to attend a private Catholic secondary school in Londonderry. He commemorated this gift in \"Digging,\" the first poem in his first book, and in two poems he wrote near the end of his life: \"The Conway Stewart\" and \"On the Gift of a Fountain Pen.\" Friends and doctors had warned him that his endless globetrotting to give lectures and poetry readings had damaged his health. Yet he felt obligated to share his talent with audiences around the world until his death in 2013. As Hart shows, Heaney found his first models for gift-giving in his rural community in Northern Ireland, the Bible, the rituals of the Catholic Church, and the literature of mystical and mythical quests. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Blending careful research with evocative commentaries on the poet's work, \u003ci\u003eSeamus Heaney's Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e explains his ideas about the artist's gift, the necessity of gift-exchange acts, and the moral responsibility to share one's talents for the benefit of others.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHenry Hart \u003c\/b\u003eis the Mildred and J. B. Hickman Professor of Humanities at the College of William and Mary. He has published four poetry collections and numerous scholarly books about modern poets, including biographies of James Dickey and Robert Frost. From 1984 to 1994 he coedited \u003ci\u003eVERSE, \u003c\/i\u003e an international poetry magazine, and from 2018 to 2020 he served as poet laureate of Virginia\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 360\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.28 x 9.06 x 6.38 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e December 13, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51755209883936,"sku":"9780807182567","price":43.15,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/60b0ec5da16fc43df41419631913b606.webp?v=1780053145","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/seamus-heaneys-gifts-hardcover","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}