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    Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish
    Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish
    Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish

    By Seamus Heaney

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    About this ebook

    Sweeney Astray is Seamus Heaney's version of the medieval Irish work Buile Suibne. Its hero, Mad Sweeney, undergoes a series of purgatorial adventures after he is cursed by a saint and turned into a bird at the Battle of Moira. Heaney's translation not only restores to us a work of historical and literary importance but offers the genius of one of our greatest living poets to reinforce its claims on the reader of contemporary literature.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 13, 2014
    ISBN9781466855809
    Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish
    Author

    Seamus Heaney

    Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His poems, plays, translations, and essays include Opened Ground, Electric Light, Beowulf, The Spirit Level, District and Circle, and Finders Keepers. Robert Lowell praised Heaney as the "most important Irish poet since Yeats."

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    4/5

    38 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is a great translation of an epic poem. Think he captures the essence of the tale, and there are some great lines in the ballad. Lots of shamanic elements in this tale for those in the know.
    • 4/5
      I first encountered some of these poems and associated prose passages in Opened Ground, the mid-'90s selection of work from Heaney's career, and was at the time not terribly enamoured of them. In that volume the aesthetic best of the pieces were selected, and it made them more than a bit obtuse and impenetrable at times — artistically pleasing, perhaps, but narratively adrift.Taken as a relatively complete whole — a number of lines are omitted for stylistic reasons — in my opinion those same passages don't inspire the same reaction. Though Heaney himself comments that the poem occasionally has some moments of less inspired verse, I found that I had a greater appreciation for the sublime sections when I was less confused over just who the characters speaking were, and what precisely they were talking of.While I understand why the selections appeared in Opened Ground, the improved ease of comprehension in the longer narrative of Sweeney Astray and the subsequent increased appreciation makes me glad that I didn't act according to my initial feelings after reading it, and instead picked up the full work.
    • 5/5
      What a rare treat--the magic of medieval Irish prose translated with the poetic brilliance of Seamus Heaney. A poignant and beautifully told story.

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