Congratulations to Dr. Rosie Lavan on the publication of her monograph, Seamus Heaney and Society by Oxford University Press.

The School of English congratulates Dr. Rosie Lavan on the publication of her monograph, Seamus Heaney and Society by Oxford University Press. This is a much anticipated publication, and an important intervention in the scholarship of one of Ireland's greatest writers:

Throughout his career in poetry, Seamus Heaney maintained roles in education and was a visible presence in the print and broadcast media. Seamus Heaney and Society examines the ways in which his work as a poet was shaped by his work as a teacher, lecturer, critic, and public figure.
Drawing on a range of archival material, this book revives the varied contexts within which Heaney’s work was written, published, and circulated, and it assesses his achievements and status in Ireland, Britain, and the United States through close analysis of his work in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, and manuscript drafts of key writings now held in the National Library of Ireland.
Asserting the significance of the cultural, institutional, and historical worlds in which Heaney wrote and was read, Seamus Heaney and Society aims to explore the social lives of Heaney’s work, while also exploring the ways in which he questioned and sustained the privacy and singularity of poetry. Ultimately, it considers how the enduring legacy of a great poet emerges from the working life of a contemporary writer.