Paul Painting Paul: Self-Portraiture and Subjectivity in Durcan’s Poetry

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v22i2.180772

Keywords:

Self-Portraiture, Subjectivity, Poetry, Paul Durcan

Abstract

In a significant number of Paul Durcan’s poems, a “character” named Paul Durcan makes an appearance. Part autobiographical trace, part fictional construct, what does this enigmatic persona have to say about authorship, subjectivity and the potential for self-portraiture via poetic form? This article examines the multiple implications of Durcan’s apparent self-inscription in light of Barthes’s notion of the death of the author, Foucault’s author function, and Durcan’s own perception of the poetry collection as a verbal picture gallery.

Author Biography

  • Kathleen McCracken

    Kathleen McCracken is a Canadian poet and academic. She is the author of seven collections of poetry including Blue Light, Bay and College (Penumbra Press, 1991), which was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1992, A Geography of Souls (Thistledown Press, 2002), Moonclaves (Exile Editions, 2007) and Tattoo Land (Exile Editions, 2009).A bilingual English/Portuguese edition of her poetry entitled Double Self Portrait with Mirror: New and Selected Poems, and featuring a preface by Medbh McGuckian, was published by the distinguished Brazilian press Editora Ex Machina. She is the recipient of the University of Toronto Review's Editor's Choice Award for Poetry, the Anne Szumigalski Editor's Prize, several Ontario Arts Council awards and an Individual Artist Award from the Northern Ireland Arts Council. Her poems have appeared in The Malahat Review, Poetry Canada Review, Exile Quarterly, Poetry Ireland, The Shop, Revival, Abridged, New Orleans Review and Grain, and she has given readings in Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States. Kathleen received an Honours BA in English and Creative Writing and an MA in English from York University. Her doctoral thesis examined the anti-parable form in the radio plays of Louis MacNeice, and after receiving a PhD in English from the University of Toronto, she was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Fellowship which enabled her to complete two years of post-doctoral research at University College, Dublin. In 1992 she took up a full-time post as Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Ulster University. She has published scholarly articles the poetry of Paul Durcan, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson and Derek Mahon, on the documentary films of John T. Davis, and on Native Canadian writing.

References

Abbot, H. Porter. Beckett Writing Beckett: The Author in the Autograph. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Auster, Paul. The Art of Hunger: Essays, Prefaces, Interviews and The Red Notebook. London: Faber & Faber, 1997.

Auster, Paul. Invisible. London: Faber & Faber, 2009.

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Image Music Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. London: Fontana Press, 1977; rpt. 1990.

Berlin, Isaiah. “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays. Eds. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer. London: Pimlico, 1998.

Borges, Jorge Luis. “Borges and I.” Collected Fictions. Trans. Andrew Hurley. London: Allen Lane/ Penguin, 1998.

Durcan, Paul. Endsville. Dublin: New Writers’ Press, 1967.

Durcan, Paul. O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor. Dublin: Anna Livia Books, 1975. Rev. ed. London: The Harvill Press, 1995.

Durcan, Paul. The Selected Paul Durcan. Ed. Edna Longley. Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1982.

Durcan, Paul. Jumping the Train Tracks with Angela. Dublin: Raven Arts Press, 1983.

Durcan, Paul. Going Home to Russia. Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1987.

Durcan, Paul. Daddy, Daddy. Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1990.

Durcan, Paul. A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems. London: The Harvill Press, 1993.

Durcan, Paul. Christmas Day. London: Harvill, 1996.

Durcan, Paul. Interview with Mike Murphy. The Arts Show. RTE Radio 1, 13 December 1997, 7.02pm. First broadcast RTE Radio 1, December 1996.

Durcan, Paul. Interview with the author. County Meath, Ireland, 19 August 1998. Unpublished.

Durcan, Paul. Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil. London: The Harvill Press, 1999.

Durcan, Paul. Cries of an Irish Caveman: New Poems. London: The Harvill Press, 2001.

Durcan, Paul. The Laughter of Mothers. London: Harvill Secker, 2007.

Durcan, Paul. Life is a Dream: 40 Years Reading Poems 1967-2007. London: Harvill Secker, 2009.

Foucault, Michel. “What Is An Author?” The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. London: Penguin, 1991.

Garber, Marjorie. Shakespeare’s Ghost Writers: Literature as Uncanny Causality. New York: Methuen, 1987

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Published

20-12-2020

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 2 (2020): ABEI Journal 22.2 — Celebrating Paul Durcan on his 76th Birthday

Section

Paul Durcan’s Poetry from the Irish and the International Perspectives

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Kathleen McCracken

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

McCracken , K. . (2020). Paul Painting Paul: Self-Portraiture and Subjectivity in Durcan’s Poetry. ABEI Journal, 22(2), 75-82. https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v22i2.180772