Field Work (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Seamus Heaney
- First Published: 1979
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Perception, Love or romance, Nature, Rural or country life, Farms, farmers, or farming, Trains, Ireland or Irish people, Moon or moons
The Poem
“Field Work” is a love poem in four parts. It begins with a reasonably traditional joining of nature poetry and love poetry, seems to call itself into question, then resolves in an act of human contact and an assertion of the “perfection” of the beloved. The beloved is unidentified. So, too, is the landscape, although most of the details—“sally” or willow trees, furze, wildflowers, and currant shrubs—fit the Wicklow countryside often evoked in the book from which the poem comes (and to which the poem gives its title). Seamus Heaney often writes about...
[The entire page is 1424 words long]
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