Clarke, Austin

(1896-1974)

   Considered one of the most important Irish poets to come along after W.B. Yeats, he was born in Dublin and was educated at Belvedere College and then University College Dublin (UCD). He graduated in 1916, earned an M.A. in 1917 and was appointed as a lecturer in UCD in the same year. His early poetry was heavily indebted to poets associated with the Irish Literary Renaissance, such as W.B. Yeats and George Russell (AE). From 1922 to 1937, when he returned to Dublin, Clarke worked as a journalist and book reviewer in England. From 1929 to 1955 he concentrated on writing verse plays and working with the Dublin Verse Speaking Society and the Lyric Theatre Company, which he helped found. He received numerous awards, including Ireland's highest literary honor, the Gregory Medal. He published three novels, memoirs, and literary criticism, and had several of his plays broadcast on the radio. Some of his poems: "A Statue for Dublin Bay," "A Vision of Mars," "Civil War," "OldFashioned Pilgrimage," "Rousseau," "The Tantalus," "The Vengeance of Fionn," "The Young Woman of Beare," "Three Poems about Children."

   Sources: Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. Austin Clarke: His Life and Works. Austin Clarke. Humanities Press, 1974. Collected Poems of Austin Clarke. Liam Miller, ed. The Dolmen Press, 1974. Biography of Austin Clarke (http://homepage.eircom.net/Clarke, Austinsplash/Clarke.html). Irish Poetry: An Interpretive Anthology from Before Swift to Yeats and After. W.J. McCormack, ed. New York University Press, 2000. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse. Thomas Kinsella, ed. Oxford University Press, 1986. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.