Sweeney Astray

Infobox Book
name = Sweeney Astray
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author = Seamus Heaney
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country = United Kingdom
language = English
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publisher = Faber and Faber
pub_date = 1984
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pages = 85
isbn = ISBN 0-571-13360-6
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Sweeney Astray is a version of the Irish poem "Buile Shuibhne" written by Seamus Heaney and published in 1984. It is based on an earlier translation by J.G. O'Keeffe. Heaney's version was well received in many circles and, much like his later take on "Beowulf", has largely become the standard translation on college syllabi.

One critic writes:

"Sweeney Astray" is a masterpiece on many levels: for the complex weave of its themes to the lyrical quality of its prose--accentuated greatly, of course, by Seamus Heaney's virtuoso translation. We follow mad Sweeney in his crazed wanderings through the forest and hills, torn within himself by his love of the wild and his incurable loneliness. The tale is presented as chunks of narrative interspersed with segments of poetry, their quiet, melancholy beauty evoking the sounds of windsong and rain. [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374518947 Sweeney Astray: A Version From the Irish] ]

The poem served as inspiration for a collection of photographs by Rachel Giese which was published, side by side with excerpts from the poem, under the title Sweeney's Flight.

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