Online Book Club | The Translations of Seamus Heaney

From the very beginning, translation informed over fifty years of Heaney's critical and creative output, from his widely acclaimed translation of Beowulf to the posthumous publication of his translation of Virgil's Aeneid Book VI (2016).

Heaney has not only translated classic works of Latin and Old English but also a great number of poems from Spanish, Romanian, Dutch, Russian, German, Scottish Gaelic, Czech, classical and modern Greek, modern and Middle French, medieval and modern Italian, and more. He was drawn in particular to the language of his homeland, a preoccupation that runs through this volume in those translations from Old, Middle and modern Irish. As he said: 'If you lived in the Irish countryside as I did in my childhood, you lived in a primal Gaeltacht.'

There will be an opportunity to read our favourite sections, chat about themes and inspirations and ask questions about anything we didn't understand.

This book club is for everyone, you don't need to be a poetry expert!