Word: poem
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When translating the poem's "pre-chivalric diction," then, Heaney tried to leave his "Ulster fingerprints" on it, to reintroduce Beowulf in the formal, but simple, idiom of his father's relatives. "Scullions," according to Heaney, had just as much right to Beowulf as the Early English Text Society. After all, the geographically-defined "England" does not exclusively own what is called the English language. Though he is considered an Irish poet, Heaney's medium is exactly that language which is not contained by national boundaries...
...today's audiences, however, is not just another indulgence of "ethnic swank," he says. Because, 0 as he argued in one of the Wednesday "Talking Shop" discussions, "The English tongue is something that's grown beyond the nation." English speakers who are not English nationals can claim the poem as part of their linguistic genealogy as legitimately as those who carry English passports, he argued...
Though the Irish and the English have historically fought bloody battles over every sort of territory, Heaney's move is not one that furthers that conflict. His reclamation of Beowulf does not violently uproot the epic poem from its English context and encourage ethnic possessiveness. In fact, it bridges at least one gap between the two parties...
...central linguistic motif of some of his political poems became of use to him, as he noted in his lectures, when he approached the translation of Beowulf. A motif of his political poems is the conflict between the rich vowel sounds of the Irish language and the consonant-heavy word-clumps of the Anglo-Saxon. In approaching the Beowulf translation, Heaney faced a different problem--cramming what he called the "giant ingots" of the Anglo-Saxon tongue into the "itty bitty tiny" parameters of moden English, parameters Heaney has broken through with consummate skill in much of his own poetry...
...poetry--maneuvering between the private and the public, past and present, political and personal--is matched only by listening to him read his poetry that so wonderfully orchestrates these various forces. At every appearance Heaney read some portion of his work, be it excerpts from or complete versions of poems, portions of his translation of Beowulf or an impromptu reading of probably his most famous poem, "Digging," meeting with thunderous applause. Perhaps Irish consul general Conor O'Riordan said it best when he said, "Seamus Heaney has spoken eloquently about a time in the future when poetry and history, rhyme...