In this volume of critical essays, Seamus Heaney scrutinizes the poetry of many masterful poets. Throughout the collection, Heaney's gifts as a wise and genial reader are exercised with characteristic exactness, and we are reminded, above all, of the essentially gratifying nature of poetry itself.

Seamus Heaney received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. His most recent translations are Beowulf and Diary of One Who Vanished. His most recent collection of poems is Opened Ground.