Titled ‘Prayer’, the unpublished translation in this edition has come to us as a clean, unmarked typescript discovered in the archives of the National Library of Ireland. Whether it was intended to be revised by the author, or perhaps be submitted for publication, we cannot be sure, but we do have a guide as a precedent. ‘To a Wine Jar’, the text that opens this book, found its way from typescript to publication thirty years after it was finished and did so without revision. Corinne J. Saunders, The Forest of Medieval Romance: Avernus, Broceliande, Arden, Cambridge, D. S. (...) Edel Bhreathnach, “Perceptions of Kingship in Early Medieval Irish Vernacular Literature”, in Lordship in Medieval Ireland: Image and Reality, Linda Doran, James Lyttleton (eds.), Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2007, p. 21.

Kiberd, Declan, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation, J. Cape (London, England), 1995. The complete translations of the poet Seamus Heaney, a Nobel laureate and prolific, revolutionary translator.Heaney’s next volume District and Circle (2006) won the T.S. Eliot Prize, the most prestigious poetry award in the UK. Commenting on the volume for the New York Times, critic Brad Leithauser found it remarkably consistent with the rest of Heaney’s oeuvre. But while Heaney’s career may demonstrate an “of-a-pieceness” not common in poetry, Leithauser found that Heaney’s voice still “carries the authenticity and believability of the plainspoken—even though (herein his magic) his words are anything but plainspoken. His stanzas are dense echo chambers of contending nuances and ricocheting sounds. And his is the gift of saying something extraordinary while, line by line, conveying a sense that this is something an ordinary person might actually say.”

Vendler, Helen. "Books: Echo Soundings, Searches, Probes." Rev. of Station Island, by Seamus Heaney. The New Yorker 23 Sept. 1985: 116. AB - Drawing on Jane Bennett’s theory of “crossings and enchantment”, this essay considers interspecies transformations in Seamus Heaney’s Sweeney Astray (1983). As a bird-man, Mad King Sweeney discovers that the arboreal environment is a vibrantly interstitial space in which paganism and Christianity coexist. By negotiating this liminal space, he opens himself to forms of attachment and enchantment that radically ameliorate his accursed existence in the trees. Sweeney seems on his way to recovery, and a local woman felt sorry for him and would leave him milk and food. However, her husband becomes jealous and kills Sweeney with a spear. The place of his death was at the well near Glen Bolcain and is called The Madman’s Well. Jane Bennett, The Enchantment of Modern Life: Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics, Princeton – Oxfor (...)Seamus Heaney, like James Joyce, translated himself out of Ireland and into the wider world. He travelled, befriended and was influenced by Derek Walcott, from St Lucia, Russian exile Joseph Brodsky and Czeslaw Milosz, from Poland. Joep Leerssen, “Wildness, Wilderness, and Ireland: Medieval and Early-Modern Patterns in the Demarc (...) Fergus Kelly, “Trees in Early Ireland”, Irish Forestry: Journal of the Society of Irish Foresters, vol. 56, no. 1, 1999, p. 41. The other “lords” were oak, hazel, ash, pine, holly, and apple. Trees were evaluated by their usage, their comparative stature, and their longevity, and a complex system of penalties was in place for their misuse. Indeed, there are surviving references in 7 th-century texts to a lost law tract titled Fidbretha (Tree Judgments) that indicates woodland as a legal jurisdiction. See Niall Mac Coitir, Irish Trees: Myths, Legends and Folklore, Cork, The Collins Press, 2003, p. 13.

Mahoney, John L., editor, Seeing into the Life of Things: Essays on Literature and Religious Experience, Fordham University Press (New York, NY), 1998. Fergus Kelly, “Trees in Early Ireland”, Irish Forestry: Journal of the Society of Irish Foresters, (...) New York Times Book Review, March 26, 1967; April 18, 1976; December 2, 1979; December 21, 1980; May 27, 1984; March 10, 1985; March 5, 1989; December 14, 1995, p. 15; June 1, 1997, p. 52; December 20, 1998, review of Opened Ground, p. 10; June 6, 1999, review of Opened Ground, p. 37; February 27, 2000, James Shapiro, "A Better 'Beowulf'" p. 6; December 3, 2000, p. 9; April 8, 2001, p. 16; April 29, 2001, p. 22; June 3, 2001, p. 24; October 6, 2002, p. 33.Sweeney nearly goes mad and retreats from battle. At one point he again encounters Donal, but Donal respects Sweeney and doesn’t want to fight him or kill him, but rather invites him to peace and unity. However, Sweeney is in no condition to agree. The third part is titled "Sweeney Redivivus." It consists of poems (or "glosses" as Heaney terms them) based on the figure of Sweeney from Sweeney Astray (1983), Heaney's translation of the medieval Irish text Buile Suibhne. In his introduction to Sweeney Astray Heaney indicates the significance that the story of Sweeney has for him by writing that it can be seen as "an aspect of the quarrel between free creative imagination and the constraints of religious, political, and domestic obligation." [9] Reception [ edit ] But in O’Brien’s book, as Sweeney continues to eulogise the trees in rich Irish, while still naked, he is further tortured by the company of misfits whose idea of poetry includes “A Pint of Plain is Your Only Man”.