Literary critic Harold Bloom on Heaney's place in the pantheon of poets.
Seán Rocks talks to literary critic and Yale professor about Heaney's place in the pantheon of poets. Bloom edited a critical work on Heaney. He mentions a long review essay he wrote on Heaney for the Times Literary Supplement on the publication of 'Field Work', which he regarded as a magnificent breakthrough for the poet. Heaney credited the essay with bringing him a number of serious readers.
Bloom says that 74 was too young an age for the greatest Anglo-Irish poet since W. B. Yeats to die. Only time will tell where Heaney belongs in the pantheon, but Bloom believes he is a permanent poet and that the only living two poets his equal are John Ashbery and Geoffrey Hill.
