Seamus Heaney is a Nobel-Prize winning Irish poet--born on April 13, 1939. In his Nobel Lecture, he said: "Only the very stupid or the very deprived can any longer help knowing that the documents of civilization have been written in blood and tears, blood and tears no less real for being very remote... the inclination is not only not to credit human nature with much constructive potential but not to credit anything too positive in the work of art." Heaney is also known for his translations and other works. Read on:

• The Burial at Thebes
• Books About Beowulf
• Books About Antigone
• Irish Writing

Celebrate Seamus Heaney--on his birthday.