Clearances (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Seamus Heaney
- First Published: 1987
- Type of Work: Sonnet sequence
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric sequence, Sonnet
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Europe or Europeans, Religion, Death or dying, Catholics or Catholic Church, Life and death, Ireland or Irish people, Mortality
The Poem
An elegiac sequence of eight sonnets on the death of Seamus Heaney’s mother, “Clearances” is a reworking and revisiting of many of his early domestic and agrarian poems. At the same time it represents an attempt to confront the importance of his mother in his life and work. As the eldest child, Heaney occupied a somewhat privileged place in the family, and his mother figured in many of his earlier works. The sequence emphasizes the private moments—folding sheets, peeling potatoes together, even the oedipal struggle he calls “our Sons and Lovers...
[The entire page is 1579 words long]
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