Austin Clarke

178 Pages·2004·0.46 MB·English

Leabharlann Náisiúnta na hÉireann
National Library of Ireland

Collection List No. 83

AAuussttiinn CCllaarrkkee PPaappeerrss

(MSS 38,651-38,708)

(Accession no. 5615)

Correspondence, drafts of poetry, plays and prose, broadcast scripts, notebooks,
press cuttings and miscellanea related to Austin Clarke and Joseph Campbell

Compiled by Dr Mary Shine Thompson
2003
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 7
Abbreviations 7
The Papers 7
Austin Clarke 8
I Correspendence 11
I.i Letters to Clarke 12
I.i.1 Names beginning with “A” 12
I.i.1.A General 12
I.i.1.B Abbey Theatre 13
I.i.1.C AE (George Russell) 13
I.i.1.D Andrew Melrose, Publishers 13
I.i.1.E American Irish Foundation 13
I.i.1.F Arena (Periodical) 13
I.i.1.G Ariel (Periodical) 13
I.i.1.H Arts Council of Ireland 14
I.i.2 Names beginning with “B” 14
I.i.2.A General 14
I.i.2.B John Betjeman 15
I.i.2.C Gordon Bottomley 16
I.i.2.D British Broadcasting Corporation 17
I.i.2.E British Council 17
I.i.2.F Hubert and Peggy Butler 17
I.i.3 Names beginning with “C” 17
I.i.3.A General 17
I.i.3.B Cahill and Company 20
I.i.3.C Joseph Campbell 20
I.i.3.D David H. Charles, solicitor 20
I.i.3.E Richard Church 20
I.i.3.F Padraic Colum 21
I.i.3.G Maurice Craig 21
I.i.3.H Curtis Brown, publisher 21
I.i.4 Names beginning with “D” 21
I.i.4.A General 21
I.i.4.B Leslie Daiken 23
I.i.4.C Aodh De Blacam 24
I.i.4.D Decca Record Company 24
I.i.4.E Alan Denson 24
I.i.4.F Dolmen Press 24
I.i.5 Names beginning with “E” 25
I.i.6 Names beginning with “F” 26
I.i.6.A General 26
I.i.6.B Padraic Fallon 28
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I.i.6.C Robert Farren 28
I.i.6.D Frank Hollings Rare Books 29
I.i.7 Names beginning with “G” 29
I.i.7.A General 29
I.i.7.B George Allen and Unwin 31
I.i.7.C Monk Gibbon 32
I.i.8 Names beginning with “H” 32
I.i.8.A General 32
I.i.8.B Seamus Heaney 35
I.i.8.C John Hewitt 35
I.i.8.D F.R. Higgins 35
I.i.9 Names beginning with “I” 36
I.i.9.A General 36
I.i.9.B The Irish Press 37
I.i.9.C The Irish Times 38
I.i.9.D Irish Academy of Letters 38
I.i.10 Names beginning with “J” 39
I.i.11 Names beginning with “K” 40
I.i.12 Names beginning with “L” 42
I.i.12.A General 42
I.i.12.B Lord and Lady Longford 46
I.i.12.C Lyric Theatre, Belfast 47
I.i.13 Names beginning with “M” 47
I.i.13.A General 47
I.i.13.B Derek Mahon 51
I.i.13.C Vivian Mercier 51
I.i.13.D Ewart Milne 52
I.i.13.E John Montague 54
I.i.13.F George Moore 54
I.i.13.G Names beginning with “Mac” or “Mc” 54
I.i.13.H Hugh MacDiarmid 58
I.i.13.I Donagh MacDonagh 58
I.i.13.J Brendan McGann 59
I.i.13.K Macmillan and Company 59
I.i.14 Names beginning with “N” 59
I.i.15 Names beginning with “O” 62
I.i.15.A General 62
I.i.15.B The Observer 65
I.i.15.C Sean O’Casey 65
I.i.15.D Sean O’Faolain 65
I.i.15.E Meta O’Flaherty 65
I.i.15.F Joseph O’Neill 66
I.i.15.G Mary Devenport O’Neill 66
I.i.15.H Oxford Festival of Spoken Verse 67
I.i.15.I Seumas O’Sullivan 67
I.i.15.J Oxford University Press 69
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I.i.16 Names beginning with “P” 69
I.i.16.A General 69
I.i.16.B Herbert Palmer 73
I.i.16.C PEN (Organization) 74
I.i.17 Names beginning with “Q” 76
I.i.18 Names beginning with “R” 76
I.i.18.A General 76
I.i.18.B Radio Éireann / Radio Telefís Éireann 79
I.i.18.C W.R. Rodgers 95
I.i.18.D Routledge and Kegan Paul 96
I.i.19 Names beginning with “S” 96
I.i.19.A General 96
I.i.19.B Blanaid Salkeld 102
I.i.19.C Philip Sayer 102
I.i.19.D William Kean Seymour 103
I.i.19.E Shiela Steen 104
I.i.20 Names beginning with “T” 105
I.i.20.A General 105
I.i.20.B R.S. Thomas 107
I.i.20.C The Times and The Times Literary Supplement 107
I.i.21 Names beginning with “U” 108
I.i.21.A General 108
I.i.21.B Universities: General 109
I.i.21.C Universities: University College Dublin 110
I.i.21.D Universities: University of Dublin / Trinity College Dublin 111
I.i.21.E Universities: State University of New York at Buffalo 111
I.i.22 Names beginning with “V” 112
I.i.23 Names beginning with “W” 112
I.i.23.A General 112
I.i.23.B Richard Weber 115
I.i.23.C Williams & Norgate, Publishers 115
I.i.24 Names beginning with “Y” 116
I.i.24.A General 116
I.i.24.B Yeats family and relating to W.B. Yeats 116
I.i.25 Names beginning with “Z” 117
I.ii Letters from Clarke 118
I.iii Other correspondence 124
II Poetry 132
II.i ca. 1913-1960 132
II.ii ca. 1963-1967 137
II.iii ca. 1968-1974 141
III Dramatic works 144
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III.i.1 Pre-1968 144
III.i.2 1973-1974 146
III.i.3 Unpublished plays, programmes etc 147
IV Broadcasts 149
IV.i 1940-1947 149
IV.ii 1948-1955 150
IV.iii 1956-1965 151
IV.iv 1966-1972 and undated 152
IV.v Undated, fragments, etc. 153
IV.vi Poems submitted for Broadcast 153
IV.vii Poems submitted for broadcast (typescripts) 156
IV.viii Poems submitted for broadcast (various) 156
IV.ix Works arranged for Lyric Theatre Company and the Dublin Verse-Speaking
Society 157
IV.x Plays for broadcast 158
V Notebooks 161
V.i In Nora Clarke’s hand 161
V.ii ca. 1915-1972 162
V.iii Ca. 1924-late 1950s 163
V.iv Ca. 1956-66 164
V.v Ca. 1965-73 165
VI Prose works 167
VI.i Critical writings and short narrative prose, c 1912-mid-1930s 167
VI.i.1 College assignments, probably 1912-1916 167
VI.i.2 Theses (M.A.): drafts 168
VI.i.3 Thesis (M.A.) 168
VI.i.4 Short narratives, feature articles, 1913-1920 168
VI.ii Articles, reviews and other critical works, 1920-1935 169
VI.iii Critical writing 170
VI.iv Autobiographical 171
VI.v Fiction 171
VII Miscellaneous 173
VIII Joseph Campbell 176
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IX Folders and envelopes 177
INDEX 178

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Introduction
Abbreviations
A autograph
DVSS Dublin Verse-Speaking Society
L letter
Ms/MSS manuscript(s)
nd nd
T typed
Ts/TSS typescript(s)
? illegible word
The Papers
This archive is the largest and the most varied holding of Austin Clarke
manuscripts, more extensive than the Clarke archive at the University of Texas at
Austin, the other main repository of Clarke Mss. It was acquired from the poet’s
son, R Dardis Clarke. It contains manuscripts relating to Clarke’s poetry, critical
and creative prose, verse plays and theatre, his broadcasting career, notebooks, and
correspondence written by and addressed to Austin Clarke throughout his adult life.
Clarke worked as a broadcaster at Radio Éireann (later Radio Telefís Éireann) for
over thirty years, and this collection contains carbons of poems, plays and prose
extracts which the members of the Dublin Verse-Speaking Society, of which he
was co-founder, performed on air and on stage. The archive also contains a
considerable holding of poems which listeners to his radio programmes submitted
to him and which he adjudicated. It also contains thousands of items of
correspondence, the largest section of which relates to Radio Éireann. Clarke used
notebooks as aide memoires, and to record jottings for poems. Some contain drafts
of correspondence from Clarke.

When the National Library of Ireland acquired the collection, the Mss were loosely
organized, and in some cases no organizing principle was discernible. Some
hundreds of sheet copies of poems intended for broadcast were, however, already in
alphabetical order. One envelope of Mss, for example, contained drafts, fair copies
and Tss relating to poems from the collections The Horse-Eaters, Old-Fashioned
Pilgrimage, Ancient Lights, Night and Morning, Mnemosyne Lay in Dust, The Echo
at Coole and Other Poems, Flight to Africa, Collected Poems (1974) (‘The Sword
of the West’), end-notes for Collected Poems (1974), notes towards unpublished
memoirs, fragments from Penny in the Clouds and Twice Round the Black Church,
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Tss of reviews, and stray sheets from drafts of verse drama and miscellaneous other
notes and fragments. The pages were in no particular sequence.

The manuscripts are classified under the following headings: correspondence,
poetry, prose, verse plays and theatre, notebooks, broadcast scripts, a small
collection of Joseph Campbell Mss, and a group of miscellaneous items. Within
these categories they are presented chronologically or in alphabetical order, or a
combination of both. Correspondence is presented in the alphabetical order of
correspondents. Where the correspondent is a company or organization, the
signatory is also cited. Mss of Clarke’s own poetry is organized chronologically.
However, boundaries are not always clear either within or between the listed
groups. Clarke often re-drafted material already published in other forms: articles
became poems, critical and autobiographical essays sometimes re-appeared as
reviews. It is not always certain, therefore, where early rough drafts and fragments
should be assigned, since they might relate to, for example, a review, an extended
essay or article, a portion of autobiography or a poem.

Where typed sheets are well formatted and relatively error-free, it is likely that they
are the work of Clarke’s wife Nora, to whom he dictated drafts and who recorded
them in shorthand before typing them from the early 1930s onwards. Where the
typing is heavily flawed it is more likely to be Clarke’s own.

In the original documents, accents, especially in the writing of people’s names,
have not been used consistently. Accordingly, they have been omitted in the
catalogue from names such as ‘Sean O Faolain’ and ‘Micheal Mac Liamoir’, where
they are used variably. However, they have been retained where they are used
consistently, as, for example, in ‘Radio Éireann’. No full stop is used to indicate an
abbreviation.

Austin Clarke
Austin Clarke (1896-1974), poet, dramatist, critic, romance novelist and
broadcaster, was born in Dublin and educated at Belvedere College, Dublin,
Mungret College, Limerick, and University College Dublin, where he was awarded
first class honours primary and masters degrees in English language and literature.
His literary circle included FR Higgins, George Russell, Joseph Campbell and
Stephen MacKenna, and in 1917 his first book of verse, an epic poem, The
Vengeance of Fionn, was published to considerable acclaim. In autumn 1917 he
was appointed assistant lecturer in the department of English at University College
Dublin. His mental health deteriorated and in 1919 he was committed to St
Patrick’s Hospital, where he remained over a year. Before his hospitalisation he had
met Lia Cummins (1889-1943) and they married secretly in 1920, but the union
lasted less than a fortnight. Two books of epic poetry, The Fires of Baäl and The
Sword of the West, were published in 1921. Clarke then established himself in
London as a literary journalist although he also continued to spend time in Ireland.
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He worked as a literary reviewer for Times Literary Supplement, Nation and
Athenaeum, New Statesman, and, from 1927, TP’s Weekly, a popular paper owned
by TP O’Connor MP, where he regularly adopted editorial duties. In addition, in
the 1930s, his reviews appeared in the Observer and London Mercury. The
publishers George Allen and Unwin issued a vigorous collection of poems, The
Cattledrive in Connaught, in 1925. The following year, Clarke’s first play, The Son
of Learning, was published in the Dublin Magazine, having been rejected by WB
Yeats at the Abbey Theatre. Terence Gray staged it as part of the Cambridge
Theatre Festival in 1927, and Hilton Edwards and Micheal Mac Liamoir had it
performed in the Gate Theatre Dublin in 1930, the year in which The flame: a play
in one act was also published. Pilgrimage and Other Poems (1928) signalled
Clarke’s departure from mythological subject matter in favour of the historically
verifiable late medieval monastic period. The first of three romance novels set in
medieval Ireland, The Bright Temptation (1932), The Singing-Men at Cashel
(1936) and The Sun Dances at Easter (1952), all proscribed under the Censorship
of Literature Act (1929), was commercially successful.

In 1932 WB Yeats nominated Clarke a founder member of the Irish Academy of
Letters, whose aim was to resist censorship, which Clarke passionately opposed all
his life. He served as the Academy’s president in 1952-4. By 1931 he had met Nora
Walker, and together they raised three boys, Donald, Aidan and Robert Dardis.
From 1933 to 1937 the family settled in St Albans, Hertfordshire. A proposal in the
mid-1930s that Clarke write a biography of WB Yeats had to be abandoned when
Yeats was unco-operative. From 1933-7 Clarke acted as an adjudicator at the
Oxford Festival of Spoken Poetry, and his fortieth birthday saw the issue of his
Collected Poems.

In 1937 he settled in Bridge House, Templeogue, where he remained until his
death. Despite Templeogue’s pleasant ambience, the tortuous poems of Night and
Morning, published in 1938, bespeak a scrupled individuality struggling with the
loss of faith. As a member of the writers’ association, PEN, and sometime President
of its Dublin centre (1942), he continued to resist censorship. His reviews were a
regular feature of The Irish Times’s literary page from 1940 until his death, except
for a five-year hiatus (1962-7), and he contributed substantially to Seumas
O’Sullivan’s Dublin Magazine.

In 1939 he and Robert Farren, broadcaster and poet, established the Dublin Verse-
Speaking Society, and it remained active until the late 1960s. It frequently
broadcast dramatic and choral poetry, introduced and directed by Clarke, on Radio
Éireann. In addition it performed verse plays and dramatic verse annually in the
Peacock Theatre. In 1944 Clarke formed the Lyric Theatre Company which drew
on the talents of the Society but also employed professional actors and directors.
Until 1951, it staged verse performances, usually twice annually, often including
Clarke’s own plays in its repertoire. Radio Éireann broadcast many of these
performances. In the 1940s Clarke published eight plays, most under his own
Bridge Press imprint and in limited editions, all performed by the Lyric or his
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verse-speakers. His Collected Plays appeared in 1963, followed by Two Interludes
Adapted from Cervantes (1968) and The Impuritans (1973). A second volume of
collected plays mooted before his death did not materialise. Posthumously
published plays include The Third Kiss: A Comedy in One Act (1976) and Liberty
Lane (1978). Clarke’s radio programmes, broadcast regularly over more than a
quarter century, sought to popularise and evaluate poetry and his series of poetry
competitions held considerable appeal, attracting entries from some notable
aspiring writers.

Dolmen Press published Ancient Lights, Poems and Satires (1955), which found
him new readers, and by the 1960s many regarded him as the greatest Irish poet
since Yeats. The publication of the long poem, Mnemosyne Lay in Dust (1966), was
a personal landmark as well as a critical success: its subject matter is Clarke’s 1919
breakdown, here confronted publicly for the first time. In old age he returned often
to the epic form to proclaim secular redemption and release, attainable through
eroticism, with some success in ‘The healing of Mis’. When he died in 1974, his
Collected Poems 1917-1974 was in preparation, and was published later that year
by Dolmen Press.

Dr Mary Shine Thompson

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