“Wafts of what conspired”: Seamus Heaney’s District and Circle and the Holocaust

Abstract

In this article, I read Seamus Heaney’s 2006 collection District and Circle in terms of motifs that connect many of its poems to themes of war and violence. Offering a detailed analysis of Heaney’s use of stock Holocaust imagery, or “topoi,” first introduced as such by Alain Resnais’ film essay Nuit et Brouillard (1955), the article shows how many of the poems in District and Circle contribute to the specific genre of non-victim verse about that traumatic period. Heaney shows how a historical event such as the Holocaust functions—and should function—as a constant reminder of present dangers. Referencing, directly or indirectly, precursors such as Czesław Miłosz, Paul Celan, and Joseph Brodsky, Heaney can be said to engage in the ongoing discussion of the artist’s moral responsibility.