76-491: Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid ( / m ə k ˈ d ɜːr m ɪ d / mək- DUR -mid , Scots: [ˈhju məkˈdjɑrmɪd] ), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish Renaissance and has had a lasting impact on Scottish culture and politics. He
152-727: A Standard English grammatical structure. His poetic works included " A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle " (1926). This had an electrifying effect on the literary landscape of the time. Other writers soon followed in MacDiarmid's footsteps and also wrote in Lallans, including the poets Edwin Muir (1887–1959) and William Soutar (1898–1943), who pursued an exploration of identity, rejecting nostalgia and parochialism and engaging with social and political issues. Some writers that emerged after
228-492: A Raised Beach'. Other poems, including 'On a Raised Beach' and 'Etika Preobrazhennavo Erosa' used extensive passages of prose. This practice, particularly in the poem 'Perfect', led to accusations of plagiarism from supporters of the Welsh poet Glyn Jones , to which MacDiarmid's response was 'The greater the plagiarism the greater the work of art.' The great achievement of this late poetry is to attempt on an epic scale to capture
304-416: A Scottish Fascism and Programme for a Scottish Fascism , he appeared to support Mussolini's regime. By the 1930s, however, following Mussolini's lurch to the right, his position had changed and he castigated Neville Chamberlain over his appeasement of Hitler's expansionism." In response, Deirdre Grieve, MacDiarmid's daughter-in-law and literary executor, noted: "I think he entertained almost every ideal it
380-581: A comic dramatist of substance in Scots. The production of another historical Scots comedy, The Bogle , was delayed by the Second World War, eventually being staged as Torwatletie by Glasgow Unity Theatre in 1946. A radio production of his verse play The Carlin Moth was broadcast in the same year. McLellan had written The Flouers o' Edinburgh (1947) in the expectation that it would be produced by
456-718: A cottage in Candymill, near Biggar in the Scottish Borders. He died, aged 86, in Edinburgh . In 1928, MacDiarmid helped found the National Party of Scotland , but was expelled during the 1930s. MacDiarmid was at times a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain , but he was expelled twice. John Baglow reports that "his comrades never really knew what to make of him." Indeed, he was expelled from
532-536: A critique of modern war in Private Angelo (1946). Lewis Grassic Gibbon, the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell, produced one of the most important realisations of the ideas of the Scottish Renaissance in his trilogy A Scots Quair ( Sunset Song , 1932, Cloud Howe , 1933 and Grey Granite , 1934), which mixed different Scots dialects with the narrative voice. Other works that investigated
608-563: A deliberate reaction against the Kailyard tradition, exposing the hardships and vicissitudes of the lives of ordinary people, He was the most translated Scottish author in the twentieth century. George Blake pioneered the exploration of the experiences of the working class in his major works such as The Shipbuilders (1935). Eric Linklater produced comedies of the absurd including Juan in America (1931) dealing with prohibition America, and
684-406: A fifteen-year period and, although they cannot be described as members of a single school, they all pursued an exploration of identity, rejecting nostalgia and parochialism and engaging with social and political issues. Physician A. J. Cronin is now often seen as sentimental, but his early work, particularly his first novel Hatter's Castle (1931) and his most successful The Citadel (1937) were
760-405: A film Hugh MacDiarmid, A Portrait (1964) when the poet was seventy-one which novelist Ali Smith describes as 'a model of versatility, a meld of voice and image each illuminating the other'. The poems heard read by MacDiarmid are 'You Know Not Who I Am', 'Somersault', 'Krang' and some lines from 'The Kind of Poetry I Want'. Writing of MacDiarmid and Tait, academic Sarah Neely notes 'MacDiarmid
836-736: A half-mythic milieu. His two best-known plays are The Lass wi' the Muckle Mou (1950), which drew on the legend of Thomas the Rhymer , and The Warld's Wonder (1953), about the mathematician and reputed magician Michael Scot . The Lass wi' the Muckle Mou was first staged at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre in November 1950. It was adapted as a television drama, first broadcast by the BBC on Tuesday 6 October 1953. The Warld's Wonder
SECTION 10
#1732793607950912-552: A major painter of the coastline of his native Orkney, director of the National Gallery of Scotland and proposed the creation of a National Gallery of Modern Art in 1930. Fergusson was one of the few British artists who could claim to have played a part in the creation of modernism and probably played a major part in the formulation of MacDiarmid's thought. His interest in machine imagery can be seen in paintings like Damaged Destroyer (1918). He co-operated with MacDiarmid on
988-578: A newspaper reporter; by 1913 he had returned to Scotland and was working for the Clydebank and Renfrew Press in Clydebank , near Glasgow . It was here that Grieve first encountered the work of John Maclean , Neil Malcolm Maclean, and James Maxton . In July 1915 Grieve left the town of Forfar in eastern Scotland and travelled to the Hillsborough barracks in Sheffield . He went on to serve in
1064-469: A number of translations from Scottish Gaelic , including Duncan Ban MacIntyre 's Praise of Ben Dorain , which were well received by native speakers, including Sorley MacLean . He had a daughter, Christine, and a son, Walter, by his first wife Peggy Skinner. He had a son, James Michael Trevlyn , known as Michael, by his second wife Valda Trevlyn (1906-1989); Michael was a conscientious objector to post-World War II National Service and became vice chair of
1140-970: A parallel to other movements elsewhere, including the Irish Literary Revival , the Harlem Renaissance (in the USA ), the Bengal Renaissance (in Kolkata , India ) and the Jindyworobak Movement (in Australia ), which emphasised indigenous folk traditions. The term "Scottish Renaissance" was brought into critical prominence by the French Languedoc poet and scholar Denis Saurat in his article " Le Groupe de la Renaissance Écossaise ", which
1216-594: A profound effect on the Scottish independence movement, and the roots of the Scottish National Party may be said to be firmly in it. The revival in both of Scotland's indigenous languages is partly drawn from the renaissance. Other people connected with the Scottish renaissance, not mentioned previously, are listed below. Note: These figures were not all contemporaries of the first generation of Scottish Renaissance writers and artists who emerged in
1292-534: A project of MacDiarmid's called Mature Art, concluding that it “could be described as a six-volume poem consisting of the Cornish Heroic Song …, The Red Lion (reassembled from Second Hymn, the ‘Hitherto Uncollected Section’ of the Complete Poems, and the ‘Third Hymn’), The Battle Continues, The Kind of Poetry I Want, and In Memoriam more or less as printed, and Impavidi Progrediamur according to
1368-571: A series of three short anthologies entitled Northern Numbers: Being Representative Selections from Certain Living Scottish Poets (including works by John Buchan , Violet Jacob , Neil Munro , and Grieve himself). These anthologies, which appeared one each year from 1920–22, along with his founding and editing of the Scottish Chapbook review (in the annus mirabilis of Modernism , 1922), established Grieve/MacDiarmid as
1444-596: Is now one of Shetland's 'Camping Bods', offering basic, bothy-style accommodation to visitors. Brownsbank Cottage, near Biggar, South Lanarkshire , the home of MacDiarmid and his wife Valda from 1952 until their deaths, has been restored by the Biggar Museum Trust . Hugh MacDiarmid is commemorated in Makars' Court , outside the Writers' Museum , Lawnmarket, Edinburgh. Selections for Makars' Court are made by
1520-602: Is probably his best known work, the book-length A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle . This poem is widely regarded as one of the most important long poems in 20th-century Scottish literature . After that, he published several books containing poems in both English and Scots. From 1929 to 1930 MacDiarmid lived in London, and worked for Compton Mackenzie 's magazine, Vox . MacDiarmid lived in Liverpool from 1930 to 1931, before returning to London; he left again in 1932, and lived in
1596-486: Is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance , although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics (among other fields). The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences , and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages . It has been seen as
SECTION 20
#17327936079501672-697: The 1945 and 1950 general elections. He stood against the Conservative Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home in Kinross and Western Perthshire at the 1964 election , taking only 127 votes. In 2010 letters were discovered showing that MacDiarmid believed a Nazi invasion of Britain would benefit Scotland. In a letter sent from Whalsay in April 1941, he wrote: "On balance I regard the Axis powers , tho' more violently evil for
1748-746: The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow but the play was rejected by James Bridie , who was concerned about its overtly nationalist reading of Scottish history. It was given its first production by the Unity Players and a radio production was broadcast in 1951. It was produced by the Gateway Theatre Company in its 1954-55 season, and again in August 1957 as its Edinburgh International Festival production. Robert Kemp pioneered
1824-486: The Communist Party of Great Britain in 1964. In 1949, MacDiarmid's opinions led George Orwell to include his name in a list of "those who should not be trusted" to MI5 . Today, MacDiarmid's work is credited with inspiring a new generation of writers. Fellow poet Edwin Morgan said of him: "Eccentric and often maddening genius he may be, but MacDiarmid has produced many works which, in the only test possible, go on haunting
1900-779: The Royal Army Medical Corps in Salonica , Greece and France during the First World War . After the war, he married and returned to journalism. MacDiarmid's first book, Annals of the Five Senses , was a mixture of prose and poetry written in English, and was published in 1923 while MacDiarmid was living in Montrose. At about this time MacDiarmid turned to Scots for a series of books, culminating in what
1976-738: The Scottish National Party . MacDiarmid grew up in the Scottish town of Langholm in Dumfriesshire . The town is home to a monument in his honour made of cast iron which takes the form of a large open book depicting images from his writings. MacDiarmid lived in Montrose for a time where he worked for the local newspaper the Montrose Review . MacDiarmid also lived on the isle of Whalsay in Shetland , in Sodom (Sudheim). The house
2052-531: The 1920s and 1930s. However, most did become involved with the movement in some form through interactions with figures such as Gunn or MacDiarmid, even if at a slightly later date. People generally considered to be post-renaissance but strongly influenced by it: [REDACTED] List of Scottish artists Langholm Academy Langholm Academy is a non-denominational, co-educational six-year comprehensive secondary school in Langholm , Scotland. Currently,
2128-466: The Communist Party for being a Scottish Nationalist, and from the National Party of Scotland for being a Communist. As a follower of the Scottish revolutionary socialist John Maclean , he saw no contradiction between international socialism and the nationalist vision of a Scottish workers' republic, but this ensured a fraught relationship with organised political parties. From 1931, whilst he
2204-664: The Edinburgh International Festival. Together with Lennox Milne and Tom Fleming , Kemp founded the Gateway Theatre Company in 1953, taking on the roles of Chairman and resident playwright. The Laird o' Grippy , his adaptation of John Galt 's novel The Entail was staged at the Gateway in 1955, with John Laurie in the title role. While McLellan's most successful plays were set in the distant historic past, Alexander Reid preferred
2280-491: The Five Senses , was written in English, but he is best known for his use of " synthetic Scots ", a literary version of the Scots language that he himself developed. From the early 1930s onwards MacDiarmid made greater use of English, sometimes a "synthetic English" that was supplemented by scientific and technical vocabularies. The son of a postman, MacDiarmid was born in the Scottish border town of Langholm , Dumfriesshire . He
2356-538: The Green Shutters (1901), Scots language poets such as Violet Jacob and Marion Angus undertook a quiet revival of regionally inflected poetry in the Lowland vernacular. The aforementioned Patrick Geddes would continue his foundational work in town and regional planning, developing the triad "Place - Work - Folk" as a matrix for new thinking about the relationships between people and their local environments. In
Hugh MacDiarmid - Misplaced Pages Continue
2432-408: The Second World War followed MacDiarmid by writing in Scots, including Robert Garioch (1909–1981) and Sydney Goodsir Smith (1915–1975). The Glaswegian poet Edwin Morgan (1920–2010) became known for translations of works from a wide range of European languages. He was also the first Scots Makar (the official national poet ), appointed by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004. Alexander Gray
2508-459: The Thistle , published in 1926, is generally regarded as MacDiarmid's most famous and influential work. Moving to the Shetland island of Whalsay in 1933 with his son Michael and second wife, Valda Trevlyn, MacDiarmid continued to write essays and poetry despite being cut off from mainland cultural developments for much of the 1930s. He died at his cottage Brownsbank, near Biggar , in 1978 at
2584-458: The Whalsay folk made up fantastical words that did not exist. The dialect is strong on the island and any strange words would have probably sounded quite plausible. "The often tormented genius wrote much of his finest poetry (including 'On a Raised Beach') and, via the Whalsay post office, conducted furious correspondence with the leading writers and thinkers of his generation." The croft house that
2660-845: The Writers' Museum, the Saltire Society and the Scottish Poetry Library . Hugh MacDiarmid sat for sculptor Alan Thornhill and a bronze was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery . The terracotta original is held in the collection of the artist. The correspondence file relating to the MacDiarmid bust is held in the archive of the Henry Moore Foundation 's Henry Moore Institute in Leeds . Filmmaker and poet Margaret Tait made
2736-535: The accusation of Fascism against South African poet Roy Campbell over their differing opinions of the Spanish Civil War and accordingly set off a decades-long and very acrimonious public feud, as Marc Horne has commented in the Daily Telegraph : "MacDiarmid flirted with fascism in his early thirties, when he believed it was a doctrine of the left. In two articles written in 1923, Plea for
2812-484: The age of 86. At different times throughout his life, MacDiarmid was a supporter of Fascism , Stalinism , and Scottish nationalism , views that routinely put him at acrimonious odds with his contemporaries. He was a founding member of the National Party of Scotland , forerunner to the modern Scottish National Party . He stood as a candidate for the Scottish National Party in 1945 and 1950, and for
2888-497: The army was influential in his political and artistic development. After the war he continued to work as a journalist, living in Montrose where he became editor and reporter of the Montrose Review as well as a justice of the peace and a member of the county council. In 1923 his first book, Annals of the Five Senses , was published at his own expense, followed by Sangschaw in 1925, and Penny Wheep. A Drunk Man Looks at
2964-510: The connections between the Scottish Renaissance and the Celtic Twilight and Celtic Revival movements of the late 19th century, which helped reawaken a spirit of cultural nationalism among Scots of the modernist generations. Where these earlier movements had been steeped in a sentimental and nostalgic Celticism , however, the modernist-influenced Renaissance would seek a rebirth of Scottish national culture that would both look back to
3040-441: The early 20th century was experiencing an efflorescence of creative activity, but there was not yet a sense of a particular shared movement or an overt national inflection to all of this artistic effort. It was not until the literary efforts of Hugh MacDiarmid that the Scottish Renaissance can properly be said to have begun. Starting in 1920, C. M. Grieve (having not yet adopted his nom de plume of Hugh MacDiarmid) began publishing
3116-481: The father and central figure of the burgeoning Scottish Renaissance movement that he had prophesied. By about 1925, MacDiarmid had largely abandoned his English language poetry and began to write in a kind of "synthetic Scots" known as Lallans , that was a hybrid of regional Scots dialects and lexicographical artifacts exhumed from Jamieson's Dictionary of the Scottish Language , often grafted onto
Hugh MacDiarmid - Misplaced Pages Continue
3192-484: The idea of a world without God in which all the facts the poetry deals with are scientifically verifiable. In his critical work Lives of the Poets , Michael Schmidt notes that Hugh MacDiarmid 'had redrawn the map of Scottish poetry and affected the whole configuration of English literature'. MacDiarmid wrote a number of non-fiction prose works, including Scottish Eccentrics and his autobiography Lucky Poet . He also did
3268-604: The issues of exile, the fate of the Gaelic language and bi-culturalism . The ideas of a distinctive modern Scottish art were expressed in the inter-war period by figures including Stanley Cursiter (1887–1976), William McCance (1894–1970), William Johnstone (1897–1981) and J. D. Fergusson (1874–1961). Stanley Cursiter was influenced by the Celtic revival, post-impressionism and Futurism , as can be seen in his Rain on Princes Street (1913) and Regatta (1913). He went on to be
3344-655: The journal Scottish Art and Letters and MacDiarmid quoted extensively from his work. William McCance's early work was in a bold post-impressionist style. After World War I he moved to London with his wife, fellow student Agnes Miller Parker (1895-1980), where he joined the same circles as Fergusson, vorticist Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) and nationalist composer Francis George Scott . Under these influences his work became increasingly abstract and influenced by vorticism, as can be seen in Women on an Elevator (1925) and The Engineer and his Wife (1925). William Johnstone (1897–1981)
3420-537: The medieval " makar " poets, William Dunbar and Robert Henryson , as well as look towards such contemporary influences as T. S. Eliot , Ezra Pound , and D. H. Lawrence , or (more locally) R. B. Cunninghame Graham . The turn of the 20th century saw the first stirrings of a new era in Scottish arts and letters. As writers such as George Douglas Brown railed against the " Kailyard school " that had come to dominate Scottish letters, producing satiric, realist accounts of Scottish rural life in novels like The House with
3496-490: The mind and memory and casting Coleridgean seeds of insight and surprise." Grieve was born in Langholm in 1892. His father was a postman; his family lived above the town library, giving MacDiarmid access to books from an early age. Grieve attended Langholm Academy and, from 1908, Broughton Junior Student Centre in Edinburgh , where he studied under George Ogilvie who introduced him to the magazine The New Age . He left
3572-422: The most important Scottish pictures of the century and one of the most remarkable pictures by any British painter in the period". Other artists strongly influenced by modernism included James McIntosh Patrick (1907–98) and Edward Baird (1904–49). Both trained in Glasgow, but spent most of their careers in and around their respective native cities of Dundee and Montrose. Both were influenced by surrealism and
3648-451: The movement include George Blake (1893–1961), A. J. Cronin (1896–1981), Eric Linklater (1899–1974) and Lewis Grassic Gibbon (1901–35). There were also a large number of female authors associated with the movement, who demonstrated a growing feminine consciousness. They included Catherine Carswell (1879–1946), Willa Muir (1890–1970), Nan Shepherd (1893–1981) and most prolifically Naomi Mitchison (1897–1999). All were born within
3724-428: The parameters defined by the broadcast", i.e., the version of the poem that had been read on the BBC radio Third Programme on 19 December 1956. Also see: Scottish Renaissance The Scottish Renaissance ( Scottish Gaelic : Ath-bheòthachadh na h-Alba ; Scots : Scots Renaissance ) was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism . It
3800-507: The piano (1966 and 1972). He also adapted work by Scottish Renaissance poets such as MacDiarmid, Sorley Maclean and William Soutar . The influence of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was evident in the initials used in his large-scale piano work Passacaglia on DSCH (1963). Robin Orr (1909–2006) and Cedric Thorpe Davie (1913–1983) were influenced by modernism and Scottish musical cadences. The influence of modernism can also be heard in
3876-464: The realm of visual arts, John Duncan would refine his Celtic myth inspired Symbolist painting to include an increasing emphasis on collage and the flatness of the image. In architecture and the decorative arts, the towering figures of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Four would give Scotland its very own "school" of modern design and help create the " Glasgow style ". Scotland in
SECTION 50
#17327936079503952-722: The school on 27 January 1911, following the theft of some books and postage stamps; his father died eight days later, on 3 February 1911. Following Grieve's departure from Broughton, Ogilvie arranged for Grieve to be employed as a journalist with the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch . Grieve was to lose this job later in 1911, but on 20 July of that year he had his first article, "The Young Astrology" published in The New Age . In October 1911, Grieve moved to Ebbw Vale in Monmouthshire , Wales where he worked as
4028-473: The time being, less dangerous than our own government in the long run and indistinguishable in purpose." A year earlier, in June 1940, he wrote: "Although the Germans are appalling enough, they cannot win, but the British and French bourgeoisie can and they are a far greater enemy. If the Germans win they could not hold their gain for long, but if the French and British win it will be infinitely more difficult to get rid of them". Despite Hugh MacDiarmid weaponizing
4104-436: The tradition and opened up new possibilities for composition with his poem Dàin do Eimhir ( Poems to Eimhir , 1943). His work inspired a new generation to take up nua bhàrdachd (the new poetry). These included George Campbell Hay ( Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa , 1915–1984), Lewis-born poets Derick Thomson ( Ruaraidh MacThòmais , 1921–2012) and Iain Crichton Smith ( Iain Mac a' Ghobhainn , 1928–98). They all focused on
4180-399: The translation of existing dramatic works into Scots. His Let Wives Tak Tent , a rendering into Scots of Molière 's L'Ecole des femmes , was first produced at the Gateway Theatre in 1948, with Duncan Macrae in the lead role. In the same year, his adaptation of David Lyndsay 's Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis was staged at the Church of Scotland's Assembly Hall as part of
4256-409: The village of Thakeham in West Sussex until he returned to Scotland in 1932. MacDiarmid lived in Sodom on the island of Whalsay , Shetland, from 1933 until 1942. He often asked the local fishermen to take him out in their boats and once asked them to leave him on an uninhabited island for a night and pick him up again in the morning. Local legend has it that he asked about Whalsay words and some of
4332-510: The work of Bruegel and focused on landscape, as can be seen in McIntosh Patrick's Traquair House (1938) and more overtly Baird's The Birth of Venus (1934). Before his success in painting, McIntosh Patrick gained a reputation as an etcher. Leading figures in the field in the inter-war period included William Wilson (1905–72) and Ian Fleming (1906-94). Playwrights associated with the Scottish Renaissance include Robert McLellan , Robert Kemp and Alexander Reid . Much of McLellan's early work
4408-402: The work of Erik Chisholm (1904–1965) in his Pibroch Piano Concerto (1930) and the Straloch suite for Orchestra (1933) and the sonata An Riobhan Dearg (1939). In 1928 he founded the Scottish Ballet Society (later the Celtic Ballet) with choreographer Margaret Morris , the long term partner of J. D. Fergusson. Together they created several ballets, including The Forsaken Mermaid (1940). He
4484-427: The working class included James Barke's (1905–58), Major Operation (1936) and The Land of the Leal (1939) and J. F. Hendry 's (1912–86) Fernie Brae (1947). The parallel revitalisation of Gaelic poetry, known as the Scottish Gaelic Renaissance , was largely due to the work of Sorley Maclean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain, 1911–96). A native of Skye and a native Gaelic speaker, he abandoned the stylistic conventions of
4560-408: Was a cousin of F. G. Scott and met MacDiarmid while a student at Edinburgh. He studied cubism, surrealism and was introduced to new American art by his wife the sculptor Flora Macdonald. He moved towards abstraction , attempting to utilise aspects of landscape, poetry and Celtic art. His most significant work, A Point in Time (1929–38), has been described by art historian Duncan Macmillan as "one of
4636-446: Was a founding member of the National Party of Scotland in 1928 but left in 1933 due to his Marxist–Leninist views. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain the following year only to be expelled in 1938 for his nationalist sympathies. He would subsequently stand as a parliamentary candidate for both the Scottish National Party (1945) and Communist Party of Great Britain (1964). Grieve's earliest work, including Annals of
SECTION 60
#17327936079504712-428: Was also a champion of Tait's work as a film-maker and poet; he published a few of her poems and also organised a screening of her films at the Dunedin Society'. MacDiarmid's career — and especially his later career — is characterised by proposals for long poems, often themselves made up of multiple volumes, each of which could be considered a long poem in its own right. For example, the critic W. N. Herbert reconstructs
4788-464: Was also instrumental in the foundation of the Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary Music, for which he brought leading composers to Glasgow to perform their work. Although many of the participants were to live until the 1970s and later, the truly revolutionary aspect of the Scottish Renaissance can be said to have been over by the 1960s, when it became eclipsed by various other movements, often international in nature. The most famous clash
4864-422: Was an academic and poet, but is chiefly remembered for his translations into Scots from the German and Danish ballad traditions into Scots, including Arrows. A Book of German Ballads and Folksongs Attempted in Scots (1932) and Four-and-Forty. A Selection of Danish Ballads Presented in Scots (1954). The Scottish Renaissance increasingly concentrated on the novel, particularly after the 1930s when Hugh MacDiarmid
4940-442: Was at the 1962 Edinburgh Writers Festival, where Hugh MacDiarmid denounced Alexander Trocchi , a younger Scottish writer, as "cosmopolitan scum", and Trocchi claimed "sodomy" as a basis for his own writing. This is often seen as a clash of the generations, although it is rarely reported that the two writers corresponded with each other later, and became friends. Both were controversialists of sorts. The Scottish Renaissance also had
5016-517: Was educated at Langholm Academy before becoming a teacher for a brief time at Broughton Higher Grade School in Edinburgh . He began his writing career as a journalist in Wales, contributing to the socialist newspaper The Merthyr Pioneer run by Labour party founder Keir Hardie before joining the Royal Army Medical Corps at the outbreak of the First World War. He served in Salonica, Greece and France before developing cerebral malaria and subsequently returning to Scotland in 1918. MacDiarmid's time in
5092-405: Was first produced by the Curtain Theatre in Glasgow. His first success came in 1936 with Curtain's production of his comedy, Toom Byres , set at the time of the Border reivers . This was followed in 1937 by Jamie the Saxt , featuring James VI in his prime. This latter production, with Duncan Macrae in the title role, is generally regarded as the one which confirmed McLellan's reputation as
5168-483: Was his Whalsay home was made into a camping böd (traditionally a building used to house fishermen and their gear), the Grieves House böd, run by Shetland Amenity Trust. But it is in a state of disrepair and "closed for maintenance" as of 2022. In 1942 MacDiarmid was directed to war work and moved to Glasgow, where he lived until 1949. Between 1949 and 1951 he lived in a cottage on the grounds of Dungavel House , Lanarkshire , before moving to his final home: "Brownsbank",
5244-439: Was in London, until 1943, after he left the Shetland island of Whalsay , MacDiarmid was under surveillance by British counterintelligence operatives. In 1949, George Orwell included MacDiarmid in a list he wrote for the Information Research Department of fellow left-wing writers whom he suspected of sympathies for the Soviet Union or direct links with the NKVD . MacDiarmid stood in the Glasgow Kelvingrove constituency in
5320-436: Was in isolation in Shetland and its leadership moved to novelist Neil Gunn (1891–1973). Gunn's novels, beginning with The Grey Coast (1926), and including Highland River (1937) and The Green Isle of the Great Deep (1943), were largely written in English and not the Scots preferred by MacDiarmid, focused on the Highlands of his birth and were notable for their narrative experimentation. Other major figures associated with
5396-422: Was possible to entertain at one point or another." Much of the work that MacDiarmid published in the 1920s was written in what he termed "Synthetic Scots": a version of the Scots language that "synthesised" multiple local dialects, which MacDiarmid constructed from dictionaries and other sources. From the 1930s onwards, MacDiarmid turned more and more to English as a means of expression so most of his later poetry
5472-563: Was produced at the Gateway in the autumn of 1958. Victor Carin , who became director of productions at the Gateway in 1963, contributed to the expansion of Scottish theatre's repertoire of works in translation. The Hypochonriack , his translation into Scots of Molière's The Imaginary Invalid , was performed by the Gateway Company during his first season in that role. His second translation, The Servant o' Twa Maisters , translated from Carlo Goldoni 's The Servant of Two Masters
5548-618: Was published in the Revue Anglo-Américaine in April 1924. The term had appeared much earlier, however, in the work of the polymathic Patrick Geddes and in a 1922 book review by Christopher Murray Grieve ("Hugh MacDiarmid") for the Scottish Chapbook that predicted a "Scottish Renascence as swift and irresistible as was the Belgian Revival between 1880 and 1910", involving such figures as Lewis Spence and Marion Angus . These earlier references make clear
5624-567: Was revived by the Scottish Theatre Company in 1985. The ideas of the Scottish Renaissance were brought to classical music by Francis George Scott (1880–1958), MacDiarmid's former teacher, who set to music several of the poet's works. Lancashire -born Ronald Stevenson (b. 1938) collaborated with Scott and both wrote in twelve-tone technique . Stevenson developed a musical idiom derived from Scottish music, creating settings of folk songs including concertos for his instrument,
5700-556: Was the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company 's debut production in 1965. Sydney Goodsir Smith's most successful contribution to the drama of the Scottish Renaissance was The Wallace . Initially broadcast on radio in a BBC production by Finlay J. MacDonald on 30 November 1959, it was first staged at the Kirk 's Assembly Hall in a production by Peter Potter as part of the 1960 Edinburgh International Festival. The play
5776-533: Was written in that language. His ambition was to live up to Rilke 's dictum that 'the poet must know everything' and to write poetry that contained all knowledge. As a result, many of the poems in Stony Limits (1934) and later volumes are a kind of found poetry reusing text from a range of sources. Just as he had used John Jamieson 's dialect dictionary for his poems in 'synthetic Scots', so he used Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary for poems such as 'On
#949050