Denis Devlin (15 April 1908 – 21 August 1959) was, along with Samuel Beckett, Thomas MacGreevy and Brian Coffey, one of the generation of

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career diplomat.

Early life and studies

He was born in Greenock,

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parents, and his family returned to live in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

in 1918. He studied at Belvedere College and, from 1926, as a seminarian for the

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priesthood at

Clonliffe College Holy Cross College (also known as Clonliffe College), located in Clonliffe Road, Drumcondra was founded in 1854 as the Catholic diocesan seminary for Dublin by Cardinal Paul Cullen. History The College was founded in 1859 by the then Archbish ...

. As part of his studies he attended a degree course in modern languages at

University College Dublin University College Dublin (commonly referred to as UCD) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile, Baile Átha Cliath) is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 33,284 student ...

(UCD), where he met and befriended Brian Coffey. Together they published a joint collection, ''Poems'', in 1930. In 1927, Devlin abandoned the priesthood and left Clonliffe. He graduated with from UCD his BA in 1930 and spent that summer on the

Blasket Islands The Blasket Islands ( ga, Na Blascaodaí) are an uninhabited group of islands off the west coast of the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. The last island to hold a significant population, Great Blasket Island, was abandoned in 1954 due ...

to improve his spoken

. Between 1930 and 1933, he studied literature at

Munich University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

and the

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Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, meeting, amongst others, Beckett and Thomas MacGreevy. He then returned to UCD to complete his MA

thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

on Montaigne. His niece went on to become writer Denyse Woods.

Diplomatic career and later writings

He joined the Irish Diplomatic Service in 1935 and spent a number of years in

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, New York and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. During this time he met the French poet St. John Perse, and the Americans

Allen Tate John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979), known professionally as Allen Tate, was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and poet laureate from 1943 to 1944. Life Early years Tate was born near Winchester, ...

and

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...

. He went on to publish a translation of ''Exile and Other Poems'' by St-John Perse, and Tate and Warren edited his posthumous ''Selected Poems''. Since his death, there have been two ''Collected Poems'' published; the first in 1964 was edited by Coffey and the second in 1989 by J.C.C. Mays. His personal papers are held in University College Dublin Archives.

References

Sources

*Coffey, Brian. Biographical note in Denis Devlin ''Collected Poems'' (The Dolmen Press, 1964)
Denis Devlin at Ricorso
*Jack Morgan
''Denis Devlin (1908-1959)''.
In: ''Modern Irish Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook''. Alexander G. Gonzalez (Editor), pp. 64–68. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997.

External links

at Wake Forest University Press {{DEFAULTSORT:Devlin, Denis 1908 births 1959 deaths University of Paris alumni Irish modernist poets Scottish people of Irish descent Irish diplomats People from Greenock People educated at Belvedere College 20th-century Irish poets Irish expatriates in France