Mary Doyle Curran (May 10, 1917 – 1981) was an American poet, novelist, and teacher. Her work, described by poet Anne Halley as being "haunted" by issues of gender, ethnicity, and class, included many poems and a novel dealing with Irish-American life.

Biography

Curran was born Mary Doyle in

Holyoke, Massachusetts Holyoke is a city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, that lies between the western bank of the Connecticut River and the Mount Tom Range. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 38,238. Located north of Springfield ...

, and educated at

Massachusetts State College The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

. She married George Curran in 1940; they had no children and later divorced. Curran earned her PhD in English at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

in 1946, and taught at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

and

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

before directing the program in Irish Studies at the

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus Un ...

. While at Queens, her students included poet

Lloyd Schwartz Lloyd Schwartz (born November 29, 1941) is an American poet, and the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He was the classical music editor of ''The Boston Phoenix'', a publication that is n ...

, who reported after her death that she included contemporary poets such as

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...

Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American people, American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the N ...

, James Wright, and

Richard Wilbur Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets of his generation, Wilbur's work, composed primarily in traditional forms, was marked by its wit, charm, and gentle ...

in her survey of American literature even though "she wasn't supposed to." Another student at Queens was civil rights activist Andrew Goodman; after Goodman was murdered, Curran found among her papers a poem he had written for her class, "A Corollary to a Poem by A. E. Housman," and had it published in ''

The Massachusetts Review ''The Massachusetts Review'' is a literary quarterly founded in 1959 by a group of professors from Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. It receives financial support from Five Colleg ...

''; it was also published in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Her most influential work was ''The Parish and the Hill'', a novel published in 1948. In a review in the ''New York Times'', Mary McGrory describes it as "a bold book" and "an album-like novel made up of unflattering, unretouched pictures of three generations of an Irish-American family. . . written in a vehement, highly partisan tone." In an interview with the ''Boston Post'', Curran said, "it is my family of whom I am writing." Subsequently the novel has been understood in a feminist context; as one critic puts it, the protagonist's "personal strength and her narrative voice reflect the honesty of a cooperative matrilineal heritage, a legacy which is continually contrasted to the competitive patrimony of hypocrisy and affectation divided among the male members of her family." It was republished by the Feminist Press in 1986, and, as of 2022, remains in print. At the time of her death in 1981 she had been working on an intended compilation of her unpublished work, some of which had been rejected decades earlier due to its preoccupation "with frustration and death," with the title ''The Paper City''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curran, Mary Doyle 1917 births 1981 deaths American women poets American women novelists American writers of Irish descent Queens College, City University of New York faculty University of Massachusetts Boston faculty University of Iowa alumni 20th-century American poets 20th-century American novelists Writers from Holyoke, Massachusetts Poets from Massachusetts