Motivated with the poetic utterance that "all this is signified by their language" as Heaney's own word, this essay shows that Seamus Heaney, not just by resisting past colonial domination with a decolonial literary system, has successively served for playing the colonial language in his poetic representation and finally achieved the poetic autonomy.
Under and after the colonial experience, Most of Irish poets have continually struggled against English political system and its language as a colonial one. But Heaney has consistently defended poetry as agent for redressing injustices in the corrupt world and at the same time as something to be re-established and celebrated in his own right. The process of Haney's quest for playing colonial language of his Irish identity as a poet can be effectively understood by examining the way in which he employs the poetic of redress.
The main subject of Heaney's poetry is to find out his Irish identification with the past linguistic tradition and its continuity. The subject is linked with the questioning of how to turn to playing the colonial language between English language and Irish language so called Gaelic which has been dominated by the ideology of colonialism.
The major focus of this essay is in his redress of poetic language and playing colonial language as well as how he appropriate language in his poetry. In this regard, This essay tries to search for the true linguistic attitude which Heaney has made every effort to materialize in his poetry. In short, Heaney's poetics can help his writings maintain the positionality of the decolonial dicourse and the decolonial literature.

• 강민건(동국대) | Kang, Min-gun