Description: This Strange Loneliness is the first comprehensive account of the poetic relationship between Seamus Heaney and William Wordsworth. Peter Mackay explores how Heaney repeatedly turns to the Romantic poet's work for inspiration, corroboration, and amplification, and as a model for the fortifying power of poetry itself, which offers the fundamental lesson that "it is on this earth 'we find our happiness, or not at all.'"
Brief description: Peter Mackay is a poet and a lecturer in literature at the University of St Andrews.
Review Quotes: "Showing how the English poet contributed to Heaney's work and development, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of Heaney's complex response to Wordsworth." Choice