This thesis is a comparative study of Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) and Dimcho Debelyanov (1887-1916). The two poets are discussed within the temporal frame of Irish and Bulgarian post-independence periods, with a focus on the poetic representation of nature. The analysis allows for a discussion of the poets beyond existing interpretations of their national poetries. The close practical-critical analyses presented in the thesis lay the groundwork for a discussion of translation, and in turn this discussion informs a renewed critical reading. My purpose is to show how, through language and imagery, the poets challenge conceptualisations of nature as national or local. Representations of nature are viewed through the lens of the poets’ own oeuvres, the work of contemporaries and predecessors, and their critical heritage. Poetry translation also forms a creative element to the thesis, which includes some of my translations of poems from Bulgarian into English, and comparisons of these to the work of other translators. These translations enrich the analysis through the creative experience of language and its transformations. In comparing the two poets, this thesis attempts at revisiting the perception of both their canonical and critically marginalised work, thus contributing to the transnationalisation of Kavanagh’s and Debelyanov’s poetry and creating broader ground for future research.