Seamus Heaney’s Human Chain, published in 2010, is still in the early stages of being placed in relation to the rest of the poet’s work. However, it seems that in the immediate reception by critics...Show moreSeamus Heaney’s Human Chain, published in 2010, is still in the early stages of being placed in relation to the rest of the poet’s work. However, it seems that in the immediate reception by critics, there has already emerged a consensus regarding two aspects of the collection; it is clear that the poems are written in the shadow of death, but, at the same time, that the poet is in a lifeaffirming mood. For instance, in his essay on Heaney’s appropriation of Virgil in Human Chain, Stephen Heiny refers to the “insistent, urgent vitality” of the collection while acknowledging that “death is the central theme” (305) of the central poem, “Route 110” (HC 48-59), and Colm Tóibín observes an “an active urge to capture the living breath of things” that accompanies this “book of shades and memories”. However, we should not equate this positivity with optimism; instead, we should place it in the context of Václav Havel’s definition of hope (quoted in RP 4-5), which Heaney understands – in his words during an interview with Paul Muldoon – as follows; “it isn’t grounded in the notion that everything will turn out well ... hope means that you believe something is worth working for” (New Yorker 40:50-41:10). In this thesis, I will analyse Human Chain through this concept of hope – cautious, realistic but deeper and more profound than optimism – as a way of explaining the curious combination that critics have identified in the collection: death and the vitality of life. By offering close readings of individual poems, I will demonstrate how “hope” underpins as well as produces this collection.Show less
