Joe Biden's love for Seamus Heaney reveals a soul you can trust
You can’t pretend to love Heaney, for he’s too subtle for that
His peace process in language anticipated – and helped bring about – the political peace process of the 90s.
There is a depth in Biden’s response to Heaney that clearly goes beyond mere political convenience. He has suffered terrible losses in his life and perhaps he finds particular solace in this poet who voyages into the underworld and speaks with the departed. This appreciation of one of the wisest and subtlest of poets marks out Biden as a truly rare politician.
In general it is a good thing that poets are not, as Shelley claimed, the true legislators of the world. Would you want the antisemitic TS Eliot, Mussolini-supporting Ezra Pound or petty racist Philip Larkin influencing politics? But Heaney was that truly rare thing: a great imaginative artist who was also a wise and noble human being.
No comments:
Post a Comment