Redress and Adaptation: A Study of Seamus Heaney's Translation from Dante's Divine Comedy

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran

10.22059/jor.2024.355502.2395

Abstract

Seamus Heaney, the poet from the Northern Ireland, has introduced the notion of the Redress of Poetry in his critical works. He defines this notion as a context or skill that helps the poets to represent the adversities of their nations in a sophisticated and artistic way. As this poetic idea is similar to Linda Hutcheon's theory of adaptation, the current study attempts to show this resemblance through a reading of Heaney's translation of Dante’s dialogue with two eternally non-repentant souls narrated in the Inferno section of the Divine Comedy. Heaney has published this translation / adaptation in the last part of his collection, Field Work. The mechanisms, function, and significance of the notion of redress in Heaney’s poetic practice, the exploration of the connection of poetry and the contemporary Irish history, and the drawbacks and strengths of this poetic method are among the central topics discussed in this paper. Finally, through placing Heaney's poem in the framework of his critical theories and combining the two with Hutcheon's theory of adaptation, it is concluded that the poet is trying to find a pathway to represent and convey to his audience the suffering of the Irish people and artists through the translation/adaptation of Dante's poem.

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References

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Research in Contemporary World Literature
Volume 30, Issue 1
March 2025
Pages 245-263

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