Criticism

Heaney's poetry has been met with much praise for his work on the clashes between Protestants and Catholics, his imaginative language and metaphors, and his use of common speak for the every man.  Some consider him Ireland's greatest poet since Keats. Critics have appreciated his sense of responsibility as a poet. Helen Vendler, head of the English Department at Harvard, said of Heaney shortly after his Nobel Prize win in 1995, "the Irish poet whose pen has been the conscience of Ireland."

However, Heaney is not without his skeptics. Many literary academics do not consider him to be in the same league as Keats.  There are some who argue his writing is too simplistic and one-dimensional.  Blake Morrison put it best saying, Seamus Heaney the author is "that rare thing, a poet rated highly by critics and academics yet popular with the common reader."