Heaney Named to Oxford Post

Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Seamus Heaney has been elected Oxford University's professor of poetry, one of the highest honors that can be paid to an English language poet or poetry critic.

As Oxford University poet--a position held in the past by such luminaries as C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden--Heaney will give three lectures a year, judge several undergraduate poetry competitions and deliver two orations at Oxford's degree-granting ceremonies, said Ann Lansdale, Oxford's communications director.

"The ideal professor of poetry does a good deal to promote young poets at the university," said Lansdale. She noted that while Auden served as university poet, he held periodic office hours in a popular cafe and let aspiring young Oxford poets show him their work.

Heaney, who is currently living at his home in Dublin, could not be reached for comment.

The professor of poetry is elected by a select group of Oxford graduates called "masters," who now number 80,000, Lansdale said.

"The person who holds it stands as a living example of what they think poetry should be," said William Alfred, Harvard's Lowell professor of the humanities and a colleague of Heany's.

Appeal Outside Academia

"It is in some ways a measure of how many people know about your work," said Helen H. Vendler, Kenan professor of English and American literature and language. The selection process also ensures that the professor of poetry be someone with appeal outside the academic community, she said.

Heaney, an Irish national, was chosen for the honor only months after delivering a speech highly critical of British attitudes toward the Irish.

At an awards dinner where he received an award for excellence from the London-based Sunday Times, Heaney said that the British media and government had maintained a feeling of moral superiority to the Irish.

"He rapped them across the knuckles in a very brilliant way," Alfred said.

And Vendler said Heaney's selection could serve as a lesson that "poetry is not defined solely by nationality. It is defined by the language it was written in."

Heaney will be paid 3120 pounds during each of his five years as Oxford poet. Because the position is largely honorary, it will not interfere with his Harvard appointment.