Richard Holland (poet)

Buke of the Howlat, facsimile print by the Bannatyne Club of Edinburgh 1823

Richard Holland , also Richard de Holande, (* around 1420, † around 1480) was a Scottish poet of the mid-15th century and was counted among the Makars .

He was chaplain of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray (around 1450) and rector of Halkirk at Thurso and later of Abbreochy on Loch Ness . He was a supporter of the Douglas clan and went to Shetland after its decline and then to Orkney, where he was subordinate to the Norwegian Church.

He is known for his poem Buke of the Howlat , which shows his admiration for the Douglas clan but is not really about it. It is a comical bird allegory in the style of fools' mirrors, the protagonist is a clergyman as an owl (Scottish Howlat) who is dissatisfied with her appearance and turns to the Pope (a peacock). The Pope invites you to a banquet of other birds, which is detailed with funny notes. At the end, the owl is given a new plumage by Dame Natur, with each bird giving off a feather. This makes the owl arrogant, so the bird group decides to have that undone. In the end, the owl ponders bitterly about her fall due to pride and vanity. The long poem uses many alliterations . Gaelic poetry is ridiculed for being retarded.

The poem is preserved in the Asloan manuscript (circa 1515, National Library of Scotland) with that of other Scottish poets and in the Bannatyne manuscript (1568, National Library of Scotland) released by the Bannatyne Club in Edinburgh in the 1820s and dated 1896 Hunterian Club in Glasgow.

literature

• Arthur R. Diebler: Holland's Buke of the Houlate. Annual reports of the Chemnitz Secondary School 1892/83, Chemnitz: Pickenhahn 1893 (with an imprint based on the Bannatyne manuscript)
• Ralph Hanna (Ed.): Richard Holland, The Buke of the Howlat. Scottish Text Society, Boydell & Brewer , 2014
• C. Edington, Richard Holland in Dictionary of National Biography

Web links

• Encyclopedia Britannica 1911