Patrick (Joseph Gregory) Kavanagh was born and raised in Inniskeen Parish, in northern Ireland, specifically County Monaghan. The first son of ten children, he followed in his father's footsteps and learned the trades of both a cobbler and a farmer. Despite his "intellectual deprivation" (May, 200) as a child with his formal education ending by age twelve, he was able to pursue his own special interest in literature and writing poetry. With a peculiar reaction from his familiy, Kavanagh enjoyed writing and
from the age of twelve he read and wrote poetry as avidly as circumstances permitted since his was the self-described "usual barbaric life of the Irish country poor where the real poverty was the lack of enlightenment to get out and get under the moon." (Cantalupo, 193)
He worked as a cobbler-farmer until his father's death in 1929. Kavanagh did not stay with his family much longer for his sisters' wages and the farm's income comfortably supported the family. He moved on to Dublin in 1930 hoping to further develop his writing career (Cantalupo, 193).
Kavanagh's poetry rose out of "peasant Ireland" (Gunston, 234). Kavanagh wrote extremely well painting the most accurate picture of Ireland, speaking with colloquialisms and using vivid imagery. He gave "an authentic voice to the peasant culture of rural Ireland" (Cantalupo, 192). Writing often of his experiences and life in the Irish countryside, Kavanagh represented the common man, appealing to a greater Irish audience. At times his depiction is so brilliant that the reader directly sees Kavanagh in his own writing. Looking at the Great Hunger, the reader recognizes "an edge of bitterness that springs from Kavanagh's own struggle against the tyranny of the plough and the fields." (Gunston, 238)
Just as strongly as peasant Ireland influenced his work, so did the isolation from his family and friends of Ireland. Kavanagh's growing love of literary art perplexed many friends and family members. The "'kink' in his imagination . . . continually isolated him from clay-mired Monaghan." (Cantalupo, 193) He wanted to break away to the beautiful and exciting "exotic islands of literature" (Cantalupo, 193). The community doubted his ability to write and laughed at his dreams. They branded him an outcast and his own family considered him an outsider. Moving to Dublin was not much of an improvement for competition among new writers separated him from his contemporaries.
Kavanagh published the autobiographical The Green Fool in 1938. It reflects his isolation from the peasant community and his struggle to grow artistically. Written to appeal to the romantic and emotional reader, The Green Fool dramatizes and reconfigures certain events of his experience. He initially felt that "there was not much drama in real life" (Nemo, 243). In his writing, "imagination over-powers fact" (Nemo, 242) and it takes over his idea of reality confusing himself. "The Green Fool sets out this problem of the romantic versus the real and prefigures the tangled thinking from which so much of his later poetry and criticism suffers." (Nemo, 243) In later works, Kavanagh moves away from the use of imagination entirely in an effort to return to truth-telling poetry.
Kavanagh's career blossomed with the help of AE (George Russell), editor of the Irish Statesman. AE, an accomplished writer and deeply religious philosopher, devoted himself to the development of young literary artists and often published young writers with the hope of furthering their successes. He initiated Kavanagh into the literary world introducing him to editors of well-read periodicals such as the Dublin Magazine who continued to publish his work. Kavanagh's early poetry grew in popularity and he affectionately became Dublin's "peasant poet" (Cantalupo, 193).
The speed with which Patrick Kavanagh's popularity grew was largely due to the Literary Renaissance in Ireland at the time. A cultural movement that grew with the rise in Irish nationalism, the rebirth of Irish literature rooted itself in peasant Ireland. The freedom from the dominating English literature styles resulted in a movement to capture that which is truly Irish. Irish subjects were better understood and greatly enjoyed by all of Ireland, not just the literary elite. Ideally, many of Ireland's Renaissance artists wanted to secure independence from Britain and glorified that which was solely Irish. With a dreamy and lyrical effect they often wrote of the hard working peasants deep within the rolling green hills of Ireland that drove the independence of Ireland. However, these dreamy writers were often city-dwellers with skewed ideals of country life. Kavanagh provided a more refreshing ideal of Ireland. He portrayed "the common man's daily triumphs and tragedies without sinking into either sentimentality or didactism." (Nemo, 241) After The Green Fool, he learned to write simply and honestly, capturing that which was truly Irish with no ulterior motives.
A significant source of Kavanagh's anxiety over that which he wrote stemmed from Samuel Beckett. Beckett was an Irish artist who resisted popular trends in writing and was known as "one who has always hated the languages of masters and who has tried to remain a stranger within his own language" (Kiberd, 714). Although Beckett and Kavanagh never worked together, Kavanagh pursued Beckett's theme in his own writings. Having never agreed with the Irish Literary Renaissance, Kavanagh focused his poetry on the trials and tribulations of the common man. Beckett believed that when readers complain of Irish society as "'mere pastiche' with no 'overall purpose' then they need to 'put despair and fertility on the stage for us to laugh at them'" (Kiberd, 716). When a poet fails to communicate his or her image, then the poem has failed its original purpose and is merely a tragedy. The most rewarding literature is that which is fully explored and comes alive as a comedy. They claimed that
the answer to the sense of doom was not to avoid tears, but to revert to laughter after they had dried. Otherwise a people would know only emotional and spiritual under-development: for . . . Tragedy is under-developed Comedy, not fully born. (Kiberd, 716)
Kavanagh remained intent on achieving such a Comedy within his work, Great Hunger. His obsession with the notion of underdevelopment resulted in a witty yet compassionate tale of the Irish commoner. Kavanagh tried to leave his work under-analzed and simple. In Great Hunger, he wanted the small peasant to look pathetic and hopeless, so much so that it would be ridiculous and people would have to laugh. Kavanagh wrote of a desperate 20th Century peasant frustrated and angry with the course of life and its misgivings. He presented a "terrifying and convincing picture of the spiritual and sexual hunger of the Irish peasant". Looking back on his work, Kavanagh is disappointed with Great Hunger, for it was an "outburst from an essentially transcendental imagination" (Gunston, 237). He strayed from the comic ideal and let his emotion run over his writing.
Ultimately, Patrick Kavanagh desired to return to "final simplicity" in which "we don't care whether we appear foolish or not . . . We are satisfied with being ourselves, however small." (Gunston, 236) He wished to serve God and grow in nature and "wallow in the habitual, the banal" (Gunston, 236) as the deepest sense of humility. Kavanagh used the concept of God to prove that there are no absolute answers. One must accept that analysis is futile, and it is best to celebrate life's simplicity. He believed that the
existence of a benevolent deity permitted man to take himself less seriously "once God existed, if only a cosmic force, the idea of man became comical. Thus was born the philosophy of 'not caring.'" (Kilberd, 719)
He refrained from any style of romantic writing, freeing himself from form, and tried to "play a true note on a dead slack string." (Gunston, 240)
Patrick Kavanagh rejected fake or romanticized visions of Ireland. He believed in an honest poetic personality that represented the life he led as an Irish peasant. The Irish Literary Renaissance provided a movement for Kavanagh to gain acceptance in the literary society but it was definitely not his source of strength. Driven to complete a curiosity instilled in him by his predecessor, Samuel Beckett, Kavanagh sought, through his barest writing, a return to simplicity to understand the truth of a poet.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cantalupo, Catherine. "Patrick Kavanagh". Dictionary of Literary Biography. vol. 22. Edwards
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Gunston, Sharon R., and Stine, Jean C.. "Patrick (Joseph Gregory) Kavanagh". Contemporary
Literary Criticism. vol. 22. Gale Research Company: Detroit, Michigan, 1982. pp. 234-244.
Kibard, Declan. "Underdeveloped Comedy-Patrick Kavanagh". The Southern Review. vol. 30,
Summer, 1995. Louisiana State University: 1995. pp. 714-725.
May, Hal, and Trosky, Susan M.. "Patrick Kavanagh". Contemporary Authors. vol. 123. Gale
Research Company: Detroit, Michigan, 1988. pp. 199-202.
Nemo, John. "Patrick Kavanagh". Dictionary of Literary Biography. vol. 15, Part 1.
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