Seamus Heaney Was The Soul Of The Nation Analysis

“Seamus Heaney was the soul of the nation”, by Eamon Carr, is an emotive response concerning the untimely passing of influential Irish poet Seamus Heaney. The article, published by the “Independent”, beautifully depicts the extent of Heaney’s positive influence and sense of universality deployed through his pieces of literature. Through this essay, I shall attempt to intently examine and discuss the emotive language used, Idolisation and the universality of self-expression.
The tribute written in commemoration to the deceased literary artist, Seamus Heaney, was saturated in emotive expressions. The fact that it was also written in first person narrative helped accentuate the intimacy between Heaney, Carr and ultimately all that shared the same
In this text, we can clearly observe that Carr admires and immensely grieves for the passing of Heaney. As an outsider, it is perhaps even more evident as we are not familiar with his literature thus don’t have a preconceived bias towards the author. Interestingly, individuals that are familiar and admire certain figures do not always realise that they are doing so as they are so used to describing their idols in such enlightening manners even if deep down maybe they do not admire them to that extent. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see why people make idols and what virtues they look for in an artist to fulfil such a role. Regarding Heaney, he incorporates many key qualities which are essential in becoming an emblem of a large group of people. Carr describes him as, “… of the people”, “…voice that was understood around the world” and “…made us smile.” All these qualities have one thing in common, expression of emotions. People like to be heard and be parts of movements and groups, however expression of emotion is problematic for many people, so the union is rendered difficult. Heaney then comes along and decides to represent this group of people, so in their eyes, he is a hero, as he has done what other people were not able to. This is then immaculately portrayed by Carr when he declares that we should “…be grateful”,“…for his generosity”. Ultimately his idolisation is amplified even more by the people’s gratitude and admiration, not only by the act of content