Mapping the Terrain of Isolation in Seamus Heaney’s “Act of Union”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8862637 |
|---|---|
| Authors | D T Spitzer-Hanks (0000-0001-7041-2607, Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 101 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 756-776 |
| Publication date | 2020-08-17 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | English Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-838X • E-ISSN: 1744-4217 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0013838x.2020.1820709 |
| OpenAlex | W3095815658 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
To explore the relationship between hegemonic masculinity and environmental degradation, this essay reads Seamus Heaney’s “Act of Union” both inter- and intratextually, emphasising connections between the philosophical contradictions driving anthropogenic climate change, the history of English colonialism in Ireland, and the repudiation of the feminine Other in Heaney’s poetics of masculinity. This essay demonstrates that Heaney’s depiction of masculinity doubles as a soft indictment of the damaging effects of radical individualism, but by reading “Act of Union” in the context of its avant-textes and three of the poems that surround it in North (1975), this essay notes that Heaney’s deep ambivalence towards masculine hegemony is finally resolved through disingenuous rhetorical means. Nevertheless, Heaney’s poetics imply a causal relationship between rape culture and environmental degradation, and in response this essay suggests critics treat Heaney’s failed critique of masculine dominance as a step towards the enunciation of a reformed “ecomasculinity.”
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| Highly cited | No |
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