The Politics of Metaphor in Heaney's Sweeney Astray

Abstract

Seamus Heaney began translating the Middle Irish romance Buile Suibhne in 1972, but his ‘version from the Irish’, Sweeney Astray, wasn't published until 1983. This article explores Heaney's adaptation of metaphors from J.G. O'Keeffe's dual-language edition of Buile Suibhne, both in the notebook draft of 1972 and in the later published Sweeney Astray, and contends that the metaphorical make-up of each endeavour mirrors Heaney's documented ambivalence as to whether his Sweeney represents a retreat from current Northern Irish politics or a subtle commentary on it. I argue that what Heaney called ‘the anxiety of those times’ is ultimately reflected in the metaphorical texture of Sweeney Astray.