Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid , actually Christopher Murray Grieve , (born August 11, 1892 in Langholm , Dumfries and Galloway , † September 9, 1978 in Edinburgh ) was a Scottish poet . He wrote works in both English and Scots , was a leader in the Scottish Renaissance (a cultural movement of the early 20th century) and is considered to be the most important Scottish poet since Robert Burns .
Life and work
The Grieve family lived in an apartment above the Langholm City Library, which gave rise to MacDiarmid's interest in literature. At first he wanted to become a teacher and completed a corresponding training in Edinburgh, but then worked as a journalist for local newspapers in Scotland and Wales.
In 1915 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, for which he served in Greece and France. During this time he expressed his first literary ambitions. In 1918 he fell ill with malaria and returned to Scotland. There he worked again as a journalist; in the 1920s he lived in Montrose , where he was not only the chief reporter for the newspaper, but also worked in the arbitration and administration of the county.
With his growing interest in a renaissance of Scottish culture - and its independence alongside the English - his first poetic activities went hand in hand, and ultimately a whole cultural movement emerged from it, the Scottish Renaissance . MacDiarmid, as he called himself since the 1920s, published an anthology of poetry, a literary magazine and in 1925 his first own volume of poetry on Scots , Sangshaw . The following year - also on Scots - followed A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle , a modernist long poem that looks at the cultural, political and metaphysical situation of Scotland. It is considered his magnum opus .
MacDiarmid spent the 1930s with his second wife at Whalsay , where he continued to write poetry, advocate the Scottish Renaissance and the Scottish Gaelic language and return to the English language in essays and theoretical texts on politics, science, philosophy and language to use. MacDiarmid became more and more politically active to represent his socialist, Scottish and internationalist positions. In 1928 he co-founded the National Party of Scotland, the predecessor of the Scottish National Party . In 1964 he was a candidate for the Communist Party for prime minister in the general election .
He and his wife spent the last 27 years of his life in modest circumstances at Brownsbank Cottage in South Lanarkshire , now a museum and writer's center. In 1974 he became a professor at the Royal Scottish Academy and in 1978 President of the Poetry Society .
Works (selection)
- 1925: Sangshaw
- 1926: A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
- 1927: Albyn, or Scotland and the Future
- 1932: Scots Unbound
- 1936: Scottish Eccentrics
- 1942: Lucky Poet
- 1955: In Memoriam, James Joyce
- 1957: Three Hymns to Lenin
- 1959: Burns Today and Tomorrow
- 1961: The Kind of Poetry I Want
- 1967: A Lap of Honor
literature
- John Baglow, Hugh MacDiarmid, the Poetry of Self , MQUP 1987.
- Nancy K. Gish, Hugh MacDiarmid, Man and Poet , National Poetry Foundation 1992.
- Duncan Glen, Hugh MacDiarmid, a Critical Survey , Barnes & Noble 1972.
Web links
- BBC Scotland : Hugh MacDiarmid (Eng.)
- University of Delaware Library : Hugh MacDiarmid (Eng.)
- The Edinburgh Literary Pub Tour : Hugh MacDiarmid (PDF; 4.0 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b page on MacDiarmid at poetryarchive.org
- ↑ a b c page on MacDiarmid at BBC Scotland
- ^ Entry on Hugh MacDiarmid in the Encyclopædia Britannica
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | MacDiarmid, Hugh |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Grieve, Christopher Murray |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 11, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Langholm , Dumfries and Galloway |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 9, 1978 |
| Place of death | Edinburgh |