关键词: 谢默斯• 希尼; “位置”观; 艺术追求; 文学良知

Abstract: The concept of place or regional domain in Seamus Heaney’s poetry implies more than geographical locations that merely arouse people’s sentimentality.It serves as a vital stimulant for the poet’s novel imagination and philosophical emigration to the realm of the mind concerning the issues of Irish cultural inheritance,through which Heaney is able to understand the then political and social reality. As a poet, Heaney has strengthened the expressiveness by supplying diverse tangible places at which he uncovers traces of the Irish heritage and origin to his poetry creation, satisfying the need to reconsider the artist’s identity within his familiar territory. Heaney supplies different actual territorial places or regions to his poetry in order to unravel Irishness and arouse people’s memory of Irish nationality, meanwhile, he is capable of reconsidering the relationship between poetry and territorial places of the homeland country, the place of poetry, the place of the poet and even the artist in society. Based on a close textual analysis, this paper mainly deals with the examination of Heaney’s sense of place from his three main poems, namely, “Digging”, “The Tollund Man”and “Station Island XII”, with an aim to reinforce the notion that the poet should keep a neutral attitude and take a middle stance when social obligations and artistic pursuit are in conflict, and bear the poetic responsibility of devoting to the maintenance of introspective traits of literary conscience in a much broader sense.

Keywords: Seamus Heaney; concept of place; artistic pursuit; literary conscience