Abstract

Seamus Heaney and Tomas Tranströmer, two stellar poets of their generation, each work with a tacit, topographical model of the relation of consciousness to the unconscious. Comparing and contrasting several of Heaney’s poems to those of Tranströmer, the essay considers how each poet makes use of his topography. In Heaney’s poems, there is an emphasis on plunging into the depths. In Tranströmer’s work, dream and waking states infuse each other to generate an experience of depth through transitional space.

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