They «smelt of rot»: Abjection and Infection in Seamus Heaney’s Early Work

Abstract

This essay considers Seamus Heaney’s early pastoral poetry through the lens of Julia Kristeva’s notion of the abject, the fearful and feminine Other. Abjection offers a way of reading and understanding the creeping darkness and fearful fertility of Heaney’s early landscapes, which are often more complex and less celebratory than Heaney’s reputation as a nature poet would suggest. This essay utilizes abjection in order to propose a reading of these early poems that puts into conversation both the geopolitical reality of Northern Ireland and the role that gender traditionally has played in Irish poetry, complicating and clarifying both of these positions.