Field Work & Skirrid Hill
Comparative Poetry Study | A-Level English Literature
Seamus Heaney's mid-career masterwork on Ireland, the Troubles, and domestic love, paired with Owen Sheers' Welsh landscapes of violence, memory, and fractured identity.
Field Work (1979)
1939–2013
Co. Derry, Northern Ireland
The Troubles, Glanmore retreat
Violence & witness, love as refuge, craft
Nobel Prize for Literature 1995. "Works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth."
Skirrid Hill (2005)
1974–present
Abergavenny, South Wales
Welsh identity, WWI, border country
Violence & masculinity, landscape, elegy
"Skirrid" = shattered mountain. Rupture, division, woundedness.
Why These Poets Are Paired
Heaney and Sheers illuminate each other through shared concerns and revealing differences.
Study Sections
Everything you need for comparative analysis and exam success
Component 1, Section B
Post-1900 Comparative Poetry
60 marks
Total
60 minutes
Writing time
Open-book
Clean copies only
Comparative
Both poets required