North

“Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats (1819)

John Keats’s “Ode to a Grecian Urn” is perhaps the seminal poetic mediation on an artifact. Like in Heaney’s “North,” Keats’s speaker investigates and describes an artifact that communicates a message to the speaker. Though Keats’s work is less connected to the body or a sense of place, the two poems engage with the past in nearly identical ways.

“No Second Troy" by William Butler Yeats (1903)

William Butler Yeats was perhaps the best-known Irish poet prior to Seamus Heaney, and the two explore similar themes. “No Second Troy” is an interesting example of Yeats’s engagement with many of the themes of “North,” but in a much different context. “No Second Troy” struggles with the de-escalation of historic violence—in this case dating back to Troy rather than the Vikings—while simultaneously acknowledging and reliving that past.

“The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot (1922)

“The Waste Land” provides context and contrast to Heaney’s “North.” Though T.S. Eliot’s poem focuses on the mind and academia while Heaney’s poem focuses on the body and the land, the two works use similar techniques. Both poems, for instance, have a speaker vulnerable to the power of ideas, places, and the continual presence of the past.