The Great Hunger (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Patrick Kavanagh
- First Published: 1942
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Nineteenth century, Dreams, Edible plants, Disasters, Natural disasters, Ireland or Irish people, Peasantry or peasants, Hunger, Potatoes, Famines, Stone
The Poem
The Great Hunger is a fine example of the long poem in the twentieth century. Its 756 lines, primarily in free verse, are divided into fourteen sections, varying in length from twenty-two to 125 lines. The poem, with its oblique title reference to the Great Famine of the 1840’s in Ireland, examines the life of Patrick Maguire, an unmarried peasant farmer tied to his small acreage. Maguire starves intellectually, psychologically, and spiritually as he struggles against the tyranny of the soil.
In section 1, Patrick Kavanagh sets a dramatic frame for the...
[The entire page is 1484 words long]
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