- Paperback: 96 pages
- Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; Reprint edition (10 April 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0374525110
- ISBN-13: 978-0374525118
- Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.1 x 0.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,409,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Spirit Level
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Maybe because Seeing Things is so brilliant I was expecting too much from The Spirit Level. That book is almost a coming to enlightenment for Heaney. I've never read any poetry that puts complex spirituality in such simple, clear, and beautiful terms. The Spirit Level feels a bit like a collection of B-sides by comparison, to be honest. Although let's face it, you wouldn't want to not get hold of it when there's poems like St Kevin and the Blackbird in it, which are at least as good as anything else he's done before, which is saying something. Anyway, the thing to remember is, I suppose, that if anyone else had written this I'd be giving it about 100 stars, if that were possible! There's no one in the world writing poetry that can come close, apart from Walcott.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Poetry which catches the heart
10 July 1996
Format:Hardcover
Seamus Heaney's The Spirit Level is another meticulously
crafted collection of spirited poems by the winner of the
1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. Heaney never disappoints.
He brings to quite small poems, such as his lyrical
reflection on mint, the same intense gaze which illuminates
his poems dealing with the more complex concerns of
religious faith and history. His poetry, while deeply
embedded in the traditions of Irish writing, constantly
surprises the reader with its flashes of sheer contemporary
intelligence and language. The way Heaney effortlessly weds
these has created a formidable and distinct poetic voice.
For me, some of the most memorable poems in this collection
are from the sequence, "Mycenae Lookout", a re-telling of
the Trojan Wars. These display his easy shifts from a
contemporary imagination to one equally informed by history.
In his own words from the final poem of this collection,
"Postcript", Heaney can "catch the heart off guard and
blow it open". A must for any serious poetry lover.
crafted collection of spirited poems by the winner of the
1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. Heaney never disappoints.
He brings to quite small poems, such as his lyrical
reflection on mint, the same intense gaze which illuminates
his poems dealing with the more complex concerns of
religious faith and history. His poetry, while deeply
embedded in the traditions of Irish writing, constantly
surprises the reader with its flashes of sheer contemporary
intelligence and language. The way Heaney effortlessly weds
these has created a formidable and distinct poetic voice.
For me, some of the most memorable poems in this collection
are from the sequence, "Mycenae Lookout", a re-telling of
the Trojan Wars. These display his easy shifts from a
contemporary imagination to one equally informed by history.
In his own words from the final poem of this collection,
"Postcript", Heaney can "catch the heart off guard and
blow it open". A must for any serious poetry lover.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
A rare work from one of this generation's greatest
1 April 1998
Format:Hardcover
It is very easy to automatically compare Seamus Heaney with WB Yeats: they are both Irish, they both write about Irish legend and the Irish landscpae, yet the similaritiues stop there. In the first publications of poems from Heaney since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature he deals with subjects which strike a chord of sincerity for his reader, as was the case in many of his earlier poems, but this latest work is more stylistically controlled. This does not mean that he stays within a more limited framework, on the contrary, you feel that this collection is a fist hand demonstration of the growth of Heaney as a poet. He tackles the highly complex and political theme of the Ireland Troubles brilliantly in 'Mycenae Lookout', but then returns to the evocatively simple style that we find in 'St Kevin and the Blackbird'. The whle collection is so efforlessly skillful that you wonder why it took him so long to complete it. It is only after the second or third reading that the deeper complexities are absorbed. It is here that the reader may find some of the weaknesses of the collection. Heaney, although a master of his style, his poetry is not quite as intricate as, say TS Eliot, nor is it as impassioned or spontaneous as Beaudelaire (not that I am Heaney specifically to these poets alone, they too have their many weaknesses where Heaney excels). Despite this, Heaney is truly one of the best contemporary poets, and I personally feel he has many great works still to come.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
The natural world observed and balanced
6 Nov 2006
Format:Paperback
I wish I could say I liked or understood these poems more than I do. Seamus Heaney is a Nobel- Prize winning, and most highly regarded poet. This volume is the first which appeared after he received the Nobel Prize. The 'spirit level' is a reference to a carpenter's tool used to level things off. The collection is supposedly built in one sense around the idea of 'balance', material and spiritual balance.
The first thing that struck me about the poetry is the richness of its vocabulary, the frequency of neologism. Heaney was a student of Anglo- Saxon , and his translation of 'Beowulf' is considered one of the best. Clearly he has a mastery of the language and its rhythms . And he has a strong sense too of the observed natural world. A lot of his lines are lines of precise seeing .
"And some time make the time to drive out west
Into Country Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate- grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong- looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater."
Again this is powerful and precise observation, and clear strong language.
Nonetheless in reading the poems I did not get from them what I do get from the poetry of his great countryman , Yeats. Yeats is filled with memorable lines and a music which sings, rings and lingers in the mind.
Heaney is intellectually complex and scholarly. Aside from my difficulty in just understanding the plain sense , the music , as I read the poems aloud somehow escapes me.
Yet I am very well aware that I am probably talking more about my own limitations , rather than Heaney's.
The first thing that struck me about the poetry is the richness of its vocabulary, the frequency of neologism. Heaney was a student of Anglo- Saxon , and his translation of 'Beowulf' is considered one of the best. Clearly he has a mastery of the language and its rhythms . And he has a strong sense too of the observed natural world. A lot of his lines are lines of precise seeing .
"And some time make the time to drive out west
Into Country Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate- grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong- looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater."
Again this is powerful and precise observation, and clear strong language.
Nonetheless in reading the poems I did not get from them what I do get from the poetry of his great countryman , Yeats. Yeats is filled with memorable lines and a music which sings, rings and lingers in the mind.
Heaney is intellectually complex and scholarly. Aside from my difficulty in just understanding the plain sense , the music , as I read the poems aloud somehow escapes me.
Yet I am very well aware that I am probably talking more about my own limitations , rather than Heaney's.
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