{\b James Clarence Mangan}.

{\b Date of Birth}.: 1 May 1803

{\b Date of Death}.: 20 June 1849

{\b Works}.

German Anthology  (1845), Poets and Poetry of Munster  (1849), Poems   (1903) 
and Prose Writings  (1904) edited by D.J. O'Donoghue, Autobiography, edited by 
James Kilroy (1968).

{\b Featured Works}.

'And Then No More', 'Cahel Mor of the Wine-Red Hand', 'Dark Rosaleen', 
'Cean-Salla', 'Siberia', 'Kathleen Ni-Houlahan', 'To Amine', 'The Woman of 
Three Cows', 'The One Mystery', 'The Nameless One', 'Twenty Golden Years Ago'.

{\b General Comment}.

The Irish poet James Clarence Mangan was born into poverty in Dublin, the son 
of a grocer. He was educated by a charitable priest who taught him several 
modern languages. He worked as a lawyer's clerk and then in the Ordnance 
Survey where he met and befriended the Irish scholars John O'Donovan, Eugene 
O'Curry and George Petrie. His alliance with them started Mangan on what was 
to be his life-long passion for Irish poetry and folklore. In 1842 he 
contributed a poem to the first edition of The Nation, probably the most 
famous Irish periodical. He submitted many poems and translations of German 
poetry to The Nation  in subsequent years. Many of his poems and prose works 
also appeared in the leading Dublin literary journals, mainly The Dublin 
University Magazine. 

As a prose writer Mangan is often compared to his American contemporary Edgar 
Allen Poe. Both had similar lives and the artistic comparisons are striking: 
experiments in technical innovation and the predominance of themes of extreme 
psychological states characterise both authors' works. But there is no sign of 
any such comparisons in Magan's poetry, for which he is chiefly known. 'Dark 
Rosaleen' and 'O'Hussey's Ode to the Maguire' are his best known poems. In 
these and others he revealed his passionate love of Ireland which was to 
inspire James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. The Spirit of the Nation  is his much 
celebrated collection of nationalist verses which display his technical 
artistry. He is considered an outstanding Irish poet of the nineteenth century.