Seamus Heaney: Legacies, Afterlives. A critical evaluation of the writert's entire oeuvre to date.

Seamus Heaney: Legacies, Afterlives aims to provide the most detailed, comprehensive and accessible assessment yet of the totality of his work, since it will examine his poetry, translations, drama and criticism, contextualising these within Northern Irish history and culture since 1939, and examining his emergence as a major international poet. Drawing on original archival research carried out in Britain, Ireland and the United States, and meticulous close readings of published and unpublished material, this will provide his readership worldwide with fresh insights into the poet and his making,

Initially the book establishes the complex, multiple legacies - familial and communal, sacred and secular, Irish and British - that framed the poet's making. It illustrates how his art expands in scope and ambition during the Troubles' early years (1969-75), as his literary field of vision deepens and widens to encompass an expanding range of literatures, across time, cultures and continents. Through their relationship with other literatures, cultures and histories, and as a result of acts of re-reading, Heaney's literary texts acquire 'afterlives', accumulating resonances and meanings which stem from, but extend beyond the circumstances of their original production and reception.

The book is envisaged as a highly significant contribution to contemporary debates about literature, not least those concerned with the aesthetic, political and moral functions of art. It will be exceptional value to academics and students worldwide, and of interest to the large number of general readers with an interest in literature and its intersections with politics and history.

The principal impact of this work will be cultural. Though its primary beneficiaries will be the academic research community, its accessibility and informativeness will ensure it appeals to a much wider constituency. The book will provide an international general readership, including staff and students in secondary and tertiary education, with detailed, highly nuanced readings of Heaney's poems, plays and criticism, along with the factors and literary influences that went into their making. The book's audience will not be confined only to students interested in literature, since it will offer insights into the complex political, historical and cultural contexts that helped shape Heaney's work. It will analyse his responses to major historical phases and events, including the origins of the Northern Ireland conflict; Northern Ireland's bloody history from 1971-1998, and its impact on Anglo-Irish and Anglo-American relations; post-1945 cultural life in the Soviet bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union; 9/11; the War in Iraq; the 7/7 bombings.

Prior to publication, findings will feature in leading academic journals (targets include Essays and Criticism, English) and be disseminated by means of keynote and invited lectures at international conferences. In 2010, for example, I am committed to speak to the Irish Literary Society in London on Heaney's most recent poems (The Riverbank Field), and during 2010 and 2011 intend giving open lectures in Europe (Dublin, Prague, Paris, Debrecen, Gdansk, Tromso) and the United States (including UNC Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University in North Carolina, Boston College and Boston University) to share and promote the work. In the past I have always accepted invitations from school, sixth form college and special interest groups (including history and heritage groups in Manchester and Preston), running workshops on set texts such as Heaney's Selected Poems and Brian Friel's Translations or giving general introductions to contemporary Irish writing, and will do so again.

Given the poet's high profile, Legacies, Afterlives is likely to generate considerable national and international media interest, in the form of articles, reviews and interviews. (My 1993 study of Heaney's poetry, Seamus Heaney: The Making of the Poet, drew a great deal of media attention with reviews appearing in The Times, The Sunday Times, TLS and Irish Times, and interviews with the BBC and RTE).