Cultural Memory in Seamus Heaney's Late Work

Cultural Memory in Seamus Heaney's Late Work considers the ways that memoryfunctions in Heaney's poetry. Joanne Piavanini argues that the shaping ofcollective memory is one of Heaney's major contributions as a poet. LocatingHeaney in a transnational literary sphere, this book argues that his late work isdefined by a type of cosmopolitanism openness: the work moves beyond nationalidentity to explore multiple allegiances and identifications. Moreover, Piavaninidemonstrates that memory is a helpful lens to look at Heaney's late work, inparticular, because of the interplay of past, present and future in these works: inthe construction of a collective memory of the Troubles; in the use of the elegy tocommemorate the passing of important contemporary poets; in his writing onevents with transnational significance, such as 9/11; in the slippages betweenpast and present in poems about his family; and through the literary afterlives oftexts-specifically, his appropriation of canonical classical texts. Drawing onapproaches and concepts from memory studies, Piavanini considers Heaney'slate work to develop an analysis of poetry as a vehicle of memory.