Alexander Montgomerie

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Alexander Montgomerie (around 1550 in Ayrshire , † August 1598 in Scotland) was a Scottish poet and courtier of the Renaissance and was counted among the Makars .

Life

He was the son of the landowner Hugh Montgomerie of Hessilheid (died 1588) and had distant family members in court circles through the Earl of Eglinton.

In the 1580s he belonged to the circle of poets around Jacob VI. of Scotland (James I of England), who became known as the Castalian Band (named after the Castalian spring ). The model was the French group of poets La Pléiade . The circle also included the king as a poet, who also wrote a book Some Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottis poesie (1584), which was intended to set the circle's poetic standards. Montgomerie was the most important poet in the county. Some of his poems have been set to music.

Montgomerie was a Catholic (to which he converted on a trip to Spain) at a predominantly Protestant court. In this capacity he was also involved in the fighting between Catholics and Protestants. From 1586 to 1588 he fought like Sir Philip Sidney in the Netherlands against the Spaniards. After his return he was involved in a lengthy legal battle over his court pension (which was awarded to him in 1583), in which he was defeated in 1593. This was also reflected in his poems. In 1596/97 he was involved in a Catholic conspiracy to capture the castle on the island of Aisla Craig in the Firth of Clyde in support of a Spanish intervention in Ireland. His fellow poet and friend Hugh Barclay of Ladyland was killed in the process and he himself was written out for arrest in July 1597 (declaration on the outlaw). But he did not flee Scotland and died in August 1598. He is probably buried in Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh. Protestant forces initially refused to allow him to be buried there, but this was finally done after the king intervened.

His poems are preserved in the Ker manuscript in the Edinburgh University Library. He was considered one of the best poets of Middle Scottish and especially as a master of the sundett . His main work is The Cherrie and the Slae . It shows influences from older Makars, but also from French Renaissance poets such as Pierre de Ronsard and Baroque poets such as John Donne ( metaphysical poetry ), the Spaniard Luis de Góngora and the Italian Giambattista Marino .

literature

  • RDS Jack: Alexander Montgomerie. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh 1985
  • Roderick J. Lyall: Alexander Montgomerie: Poetry, Politics, and Cultural Change in Jacobean Scotland. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2005
  • Helena Mennie Shire: Song, Dance and Poetry of the Court of Scotland under King James VI. Cambridge University Press 1969

Work editions

  • David John Parkinson (Ed.): Alexander Montgomerie, Poems. 2 volumes, Edinburgh: Scottish Text Society 2000
  • Helen M. Shire (Ed.): Alexander Montgomerie. A selection from his songs and poems. Oliver and Boyd 1960

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ In literary history, especially by Helena Mennie Shire: Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI, Cambridge University Press 1969
personal data
SURNAME Montgomerie, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish poet
DATE OF BIRTH around 1550
PLACE OF BIRTH Ayrshire
DATE OF DEATH August 1598
Place of death Scotland