In this Readers’ Guide, Elmer Kennedy-Andrews explores the critical debates surrounding Heaney’s work and popular appeal. Issues of cultural identity and nationality, debates on the power of language and the function of verse are clarified and explored in the writings gathered in this volume. Beginning with consideration of the early collection, Death of a Naturalist, the Guide reviews and contextualises the material on successive volumes so that students of Heaney’s verse will find an accessible pathway through the most important critical writings on this major poet.