Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 24 - The Feminine

  • from VI - Critical Contexts
  • Edited by Geraldine Higgins, Emory University, Atlanta
  • Book:
    Seamus Heaney in Context
    Published online:
    15 March 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021, pp 265-275

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the influence of the women’s liberation movement on Heaney’s poetry, criticism and critical reception by examining the changing status of ‘the feminine’ in his poetics. Heaney’s early criticism subscribed to a Gravesian dichotomy between masculine mastery and feminine receptivity, which he later tones down in light of feminist critique. The controversy over Heaney’s figuration of colonialism as rape in North (1975), and the ensuing debate over the aisling genre, present mixed attitudes both towards patriarchal ideology and towards diverging emphases in contemporary feminism. Heaney proved adept at becoming canonical at a time when the patriarchal biases of literary canon-formation were critiqued by feminists, most notably during the critical furore over the marginalization of women from the 1991 Field Day Anthology. ‘Station Island’ (1985) reveals Heaney’s gift for finding his place in the canon even as his patrilineal trajectory towards ‘major-poet’ status vindicates the feminist case against patriarchal bias.