@article{oai:nagoya.repo.nii.ac.jp:00028011,
 author = {Ozawa, Shigeru},
 journal = {IVY},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {Since the publication of his first work, Death of a Naturalist, Irish poet Seamus Heaney has published ten additional anthologies. It is only natural for the characteristics of a poet's work to evolve over the course of a forty-year career, but critics of Heaney' s works note that a remarkable change took place between his earliest poems and his later works. While Heaney's earlier poems focus on naturalism and Irish scenery, his later works describe invisible, visionary, "virtual" worlds. In Heaney's earlier poems, the use of the visible supports an active reading, helping readers to see the invisible via the visible symbol. If they cannot see the symbol, it becomes far more difficult to interpret. Therefore, usage of the invisible symbol hinders an active reading, threatening the cure of poetry that Heaney views as so invaluable. This essay examines Heaney's increasing emphasis on the invisible, drawing attention to the multitude of problems that arise from this transition. The use of visible symbols is what gives his earlier poem "Punishment" its unique power. The use of the ancient Windeby Girl as a visible symbol invests the poem with universality. The problem can be found anytime, anywhere, perhaps even amongst the readers themselves.  The use of visible symbols is absent in Heaney's anthology The Hew Lantern. In the first work in this anthology, "Alphabets," both the symbol and the world are invisible to readers, seen only by Heaney himself. Therefore, readers are unable to actively interpret this poem, and can only accept Heaney's perspective. Poetic release, so prevalent in "Punishment," is entirely abandoned in Heaney's "Mycenae Lookout." Even though the two poems deal with the same theme, the appearance of the invisible in the latter prevents readers from interpreting the subject matter for themselves. Heaney's latest anthology, Electric Light, published in 2000, contains a great deal of ambivalent vision and emphasizes the invisible more strongly than any previous work. This tendency is exemplified by the poem "Out of the Bag," which describes the illusions that Heaney entertained as a child. In "Out of the Bag", as in "Mycenae Lookout" and "Alphabets", invisible symbolism supports invisible concepts. The invisible illusion of Heaney as a child and the subsequent invisible vision support the equally invisible cure of poetry. In "Out of the Bag," however, the invisible becomes more self-referent. While "Mycenae Lookout" is based on a well-known Greek tragedy, "Out of the Bag" is founded on a personal vision that can only be seen by Heaney. This again brings to mind the invisible "shape-note language" described in "Alphabets": a deeply personal concept that hardly invites readers to make their own interpretations. Heaney's recent works are particularly problematic. His latest anthology, Electric Light, deals with more international, universal material than his earlier works. However, visual imagery is entirely absent, replaced by Greek tragedy. Heaney appears to be groping for a handhold in his new position as an international poet, causing a bottleneck amongst readers and critics alike.},
 pages = {45--67},
 title = {From the Visible to the Invisible : The Bottleneck in Heaney's Later Works},
 volume = {38},
 year = {2006}
}