Irish · 1939–2013
Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 for "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past." The Irish poet dug into the earth—literally, in his poems about boglands and root vegetables—finding myth in the everyday. "Death of a Naturalist" (1966) established his voice; subsequent collections made him the most celebrated poet in English. He translated "Beowulf" (1999). He died in 2013.