Editing Seamus Heaney (section)

===Translation===
He was concerned, as a poet and a translator, with the English language as it is spoken in Ireland but also as spoken elsewhere and in other times; he explored [[Old English|Anglo-Saxon]] influences in his work and study. Critic [[W. S. Di Piero]] noted {{blockquote|Whatever the occasion, childhood, farm life, politics and culture in Northern Ireland, other poets past and present, Heaney strikes time and again at the taproot of language, examining its genetic structures, trying to discover how it has served, in all its changes, as a culture bearer, a world to contain imaginations, at once a rhetorical weapon and nutriment of spirit. He writes of these matters with rare discrimination and resourcefulness, and a winning impatience with received wisdom.<ref name=poetry_foundation/>}} Heaney's first translation was of the Irish lyric poem ''[[Buile Shuibhne|Buile Suibhne]]'', published as ''Sweeney Astray: A Version from the Irish'' (1984). He took up this character and connection in poems published in ''Station Island'' (1984). Heaney's prize-winning translation of ''[[Beowulf: A New Verse Translation|Beowulf]]'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000, Whitbread Book of the Year Award) was considered groundbreaking in its use of modern language melded with the original Anglo-Saxon "music".<ref name=poetry_foundation/>