Editing Denis Devlin

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{More citations needed|date=May 2021}}
'''Denis Devlin''' (15 April 1908 – 21 August 1959) was, along with [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Thomas MacGreevy]] and [[Brian Coffey]], one of the generation of [[Ireland|Irish]] [[modernist poetry|modernist]] poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career [[diplomat]].

==Early life and studies==

He was born in [[Greenock]], [[Scotland]] of [[Ireland|Irish]] parents, and his family returned to live in [[Dublin]] in 1918. He studied at [[Belvedere College]] and, from 1926, as a seminarian for the [[Roman Catholic]] [[priesthood]] at [[Clonliffe College]]. As part of his studies, he attended a degree course in modern languages at [[University College Dublin]] (UCD), where he met and befriended [[Brian Coffey]]. Together they published a joint collection, ''Poems'', in 1930.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coffey |first=Brian |title=Poems |last2=Devlin |first2=Denis |publisher=Alex Thom & Co. |year=1930 |location=Dublin |language=English}}</ref>

In 1927, Devlin abandoned the priesthood and left Clonliffe. He graduated with from UCD his [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] in 1930 and spent that summer on the [[Blasket Islands]] to improve his spoken [[Irish language|Irish]]. Between 1930 and 1933, he studied literature at [[Munich University]] and the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] in [[Paris]], meeting, amongst others, Beckett and [[Thomas MacGreevy]]. He then returned to UCD to complete his [[Master's degree|MA]] [[thesis]] on [[Montaigne]].

His niece [[Denyse Woods]] went on to become a writer.

==Diplomatic career and later writings==

He joined the Irish Diplomatic Service in 1935 and spent a number of years in [[Rome]] as the Irish Ambassador (1958),<ref>{{cite book |last=De Breffny |first=Brian |author-link= |date=1983 |title=Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia |url= |location=London |publisher=Thames and Hudson |page=75 |isbn=}}</ref> [[New York (state)|New York]] and [[Washington, DC|Washington]]. During this time he met the French poet [[Saint-John Perse]], and the Americans [[Allen Tate]] and [[Robert Penn Warren]]. 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<ref>{{Cite book |last=Devlin |first=Denis |title=Collected Poems edited with an Introduction by Brian Coffey |publisher=Dolman Press |year=1964 |location=Dublin |language=English}}</ref> and the second in 1989 by [[J.C.C. Mays]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Devlin |first=Denis |title=Collected Poems |publisher=Wake Forest University Press |year=1990 |editor-last=Mays |editor-first=JCC |location=North Carolina |language=English}}</ref>

His personal papers are held in [[University College Dublin School of History and Archives|University College Dublin Archives]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* Coffey, Brian. Biographical note in Denis Devlin ''Collected Poems'' (The Dolmen Press, 1964)
* [http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/index.htm Denis Devlin at Ricorso]
* Jack Morgan. [https://books.google.com/books?id=ePqErLd8rF4C&pg=PA64&dq=%22Denis+Devlin%22#PPA64,M1 ''Denis Devlin (1908-1959)''.] In: ''Modern Irish Writers: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook''.  Alexander G. Gonzalez (Editor), pp.&nbsp;64–68. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997. {{ISBN|978-0-313-29557-7}}
* Wilson, James Matthew: ''Catholic modernism and the Irish "avant-garde": the achievement of Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin, and Thomas MacGreevy'', Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023, {{ISBN | 978-0-8132-3763-3}}

==External links==
* [http://www.wfu.edu/wfupress/poetry/devlin.html Poetry by Denis Devlin], at Wake Forest University Press

{{Irish poetry}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devlin, Denis}}
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:1959 deaths]]
[[Category:University of Paris alumni]]
[[Category:Irish modernist poets]]
[[Category:Scottish people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:Irish diplomats]]
[[Category:Writers from Greenock]]
[[Category:People educated at Belvedere College]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish poets]]
[[Category:Irish expatriates in France]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of Ireland to Italy]]