Paul Painting Paul: Self-Portraiture and Subjectivity in Durcan's Poetry

In a significant number of Paul Durcan’s poems, a ‘character’ named Paul Durcan makes an appearance. Part autobiographical trace, part fictional construct, what does this enigmatic persona have to say about authorship, subjectivity and the potential for self-portraiture via poetic form? This article examines the multiple implications of Durcan’s apparent self-inscription in light of Barthes’s notion of the death of the author, Foucault’s author function, and Durcan’s own perception of the poetry collection as a verbal picture gallery.