Matthew Hagan 16/10/02
Comparison between William Blake and Seamus Heaney
In this essay I will compare two internationally recognised poets, William Blake and Seamus Heaney. I will discuss their similarities and differences not in only just their writing, but also their everyday lives.
William Blake was born in 1757 in London, where he lived practically all his life apart from three years at the beginning of the 19th century, where he lived in Felpham, near Bognor Regis in Sussex. He had no early education, but became student, studying art, at the Royal academy school in the early 1770s. He was, after this, apprenticed by a famous engraver, James Basire. Blake achieved some success with his engravings, but his true talent was held within his poetry, for which he is more famously known for today, along with his artistic work, particularly his large visionary water-colours illustrating the book of Job, and his 102 illustrations of Dante and his colour-printed drawings of biblical subjects. William grew up and lived in a religious background, which was heavily opposed to anything religiously forced, such as church, for example if one did not go to church they were not deemed to be religious at all, but Blake thought that religion was a path to freedom and peace. There is plenty of evidence showing that Blake thought this, although we shall read into more detail later on.
Seamus Heaney is still alive today. Born on the 13th of April 1939, Seamus was the eldest of nine children, one of whom died in a road accident. Seamus lived all of his young life on a farm, although he did not wish to be a farmer himself. He went to primary school in Anahorish. Here on he won scholarship to St Colomb’s College in Londonderry. From here he went to Queen’s University in Belfast, and was awarded with was a first class honours degree in English language and literature. Seamus was heavily influenced by Philip Hobsbaum, who gathered a group of young people to talk about literature. Here Seamus met his wife, Marie Devlin, who he has had three children with, Michael, Christoper, and Catherine Ann. Death of a Naturalist, Heaney’s first collection of poems, was published in 1966. It was regarded as a brilliant piece of work. His second collection, Door in the Dark, was published in 1969, followed by Wintering Out, published in 1972. In 1982, Heaney became Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, and remained there until 1994. Station Island(1984), The Haw Lantern(1987) and The Spirit Level(1996) are other collections of poetry that Seamus Heaney has released. He has also won the Nobel Prize for literature.
