Seamus Heaney dies at 74
Irish poet Seamus Heaney, the 1995 Nobel laureate in literature who had longtime ties to Harvard, died today in Ireland at age 74. To the many members of the University community who knew him, the death of this passionate and tender chronicler of feeling mirrored how Heaney once described a fine poem: “It catches the heart off guard.” “We are fortunate and proud to have counted Seamus Heaney as a revered member of the Harvard family,” said Harvard President Drew Faust. “For us, as for people around the world, he epitomized the poet as a wellspring of humane insight and artful imagination, subtle wisdom and shining grace.” Critics often called Heaney the finest Irish poet since William Butler Yeats. He began teaching at Harvard as a visiting professor in 1979, was elected the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory (1984-95), and then eased into a final Harvard rhythm as the Ralph Waldo Emerson...