Welch, Robert, Changing States: Transformations in Modern Irish Writing, Routledge (London, England), 1993.

He was concerned, as a poet and a translator, with the English language as it is spoken in Ireland but also as spoken elsewhere and in other times; he explored Anglo-Saxon influences in his work and study. Critic W. S. Di Piero noted Independent (London, England), April 5, 1997, p. 7; December 1, 1997, p. 5; September 5, 1998, p. 17; September 8, 1998, p. 11; April 10, 1999, p. 5; October 2, 1999, p. 10; January 26, 2000, p. 5; January 29, 2000, p. 5; March 31, 2001, p. 10; June 16, 2001, p. 11; December 8, 2001, p. 9; February 19, 2003, p. 5; September 27, 2003, p. 33. In 2003, when asked if there was any figure in popular culture who aroused interest in poetry and lyrics, Heaney praised American rap artist Eminem from Detroit, saying, "He has created a sense of what is possible. He has sent a voltage around a generation. He has done this not just through his subversive attitude but also his verbal energy." [57] [58] Heaney wrote the poem " Beacons at Bealtaine" to mark the 2004 EU Enlargement. He read the poem at a ceremony for the 25 leaders of the enlarged European Union, arranged by the Irish EU presidency.

Goodby, John, Irish Poetry since 1950: From Stillness into History, University Press (Manchester, England), 2000. Laments, a cycle of Polish Renaissance elegies by Jan Kochanowski, translated with Stanisław Barańczak, Faber & Faber The title poem is about pillaging Vikings, and you get the impression that Heaney has a long memory that holds its grudges tight. Puzzling is a reference to Frank Sinatra in a poem about the Vikings, but it may be a reference to the emigration from Ireland to America over the centuries: Heaney is a meticulous craftsman using combinations of vowel and consonant to form a poem that is something to be listened to. Golden Wreath of Poetry, given by Struga Poetry Evenings for life achievement in the field of poetry [130]

In August 2006 Heaney had a stroke. Although he recovered and joked, "Blessed are the pacemakers" when fitted with a heart monitor, [59] he cancelled all public engagements for several months. [60] He was in County Donegal at the time of the 75th birthday of Anne Friel, wife of playwright Brian Friel. [15] [61] He read the works of Henning Mankell, Donna Leon and Robert Harris while in hospital. Among his visitors was former President Bill Clinton. [15] [62] Kerridge, Richard, and Neil Samuels, editors, Writing the Environment: Ecocriticism and Literature, Zed (London, England), 1998. Independent on Sunday (London, England), April 6, 1997, p. 29; July 20, 1997, p. 32; November 9, 1997, p. 38; September 6, 1998, p. 10; March 21, 1999, p. 9; April 4, 1999, p. 11; October 10, 1999, p. 10; April 8, 2001, p. 46. Times Educational Supplement, November 7, 1997, p. 2; September 11, 1998, review of Opened Ground, p. 11. Heaney is described by critic Terry Eagleton as "an enlightened cosmopolitan liberal", [110] refusing to be drawn. Eagleton suggests: "When the political is introduced... it is only in the context of what Heaney will or will not say." [111] Reflections on what Heaney identifies as "tribal conflict" [111] favour the description of people's lives and their voices, drawing out the "psychic landscape". His collections often recall the assassinations of his family members and close friends, lynchings and bombings. Colm Tóibín wrote, "throughout his career there have been poems of simple evocation and description. His refusal to sum up or offer meaning is part of his tact." [72]Always respectfully received, Heaney’s later work, including his second collected poems, Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996 (1998) , has been lavishly praised. Reviewing Opened Ground for the New York Times Book Review, Edward Mendelson commented that the volume “eloquently confirms [Heaney’s] status as the most skillful and profound poet writing in English today." With Electric Light (2001), Heaney broadened his range of allusion and reference to Homer and Virgil, while continuing to make significant use of memory, elegy and the pastoral tradition. According to John Taylor in Poetry, Heaney "notably attempts, as an aging man, to re-experience childhood and early-adulthood perceptions in all their sensate fullness." Paul Mariani in America found Electric Light"a Janus-faced book, elegiac" and "heartbreaking even." Mariani noted in particular Heaney's frequent elegies to other poets and artists, and called Heaney "one of the handful writing today who has mastered that form as well." Heaney, Seamus. "Feeling Into Words" Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968-1978. Noonday Press (1980) p. 57-8 ISBN 0-374-51650-2 Scott, Jamie S., and Paul Simpson-Housley, editors, Mapping the Sacred: Religion, Geography, and Postcolonial Literatures, Rodopi (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2001. In September 2015 it was announced that Heaney's family would posthumously publish his translation of Book VI of The Aeneid in 2016. [81] Death [ edit ] Heaney's grave Tóibín, Colm (30 August 2013). "Seamus Heaney's books were events in our lives". The Guardian . Retrieved 30 August 2013.