The Scottish Renaissance Movement has found its way into numberless anthologies of Modern literature and poetry across the world and has been used as initial point for various studies of the awakening Scottish national identity in the early twentieth century. Unfortunately, the Scottish Renaissance has seldom been subject to literary studies resulting in a sensible lack of monographs on the movement.1The name of Hugh MacDiarmid, however, is inevitably to appear in any context of the Renaissance Movement. His articles in periodicals such asThe Scottish Chapbookshaped the cultural conception of the movement, while his poetical output gave voice to the simmering national awareness and search for identity at the beginning of the century. Questions of the national character and the political role of Scotland pervaded Scottish writing of this time. The idea of Scotland as a small nation where political selfdetermination might develop in co-ordination with cultural self-expression characterizes MacDiarmid’s confidence with regard to the Renaissance movement.2Furthermore, the poet aimed to reinstall the Scots language as a literary means in the arena of academic and scientific writing extending its vocabulary corpus through the work with language dictionaries and ancient terminology. Approaching Scots in this manner has rendered him a number of opponents criticizing the artificiality of his poetry. On the whole, MacDiarmid has been an ambiguous figure provoking reactions with all of his actions and attitudes. He was the personified extreme, combining nationalist views with socialist dreams, spiritual sensitivity with objective reason. The paper at hand examines the literary effects of Hugh MacDiarmid’s writing on contemporary Scottish poetry on the positive as well as on the negative side. One of the major questions in this work focuses on the relation between literature and national identity in the Scottish Renaissance and afterwards. In how far are the demands of distinctive Scottishness realised in recent Scottish poetry? And is MacDiarmid’s conception of national identity still applicable to the modern Republic after the re-establishment of its Parliament in 1999? Furthermore, MacDiarmid claimed that Scottish identity could only be fully expressed through the Scots language. Thus, the second major subject within this examination will be the use of the Vernacular subsequent to the Scottish Renaissance and its function as a medium for national identity.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance
2.1 From Christopher Murray Grieve to Hugh MacDiarmid
2.2 The concept of national identity
2.3 The influence of Modernism
2.4 Imaginism and Symbolism
2.5 The Liberation of Language
3. The Poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid
3.1 Annals of the Five Senses
3.2 Sangshaw and Penny Wheep
3.3 A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
3.4 Stony Limits and the Period of Synthetic English
3.5 In Memoriam James Joyce
4. MacDiarmid’s Contemporaries
4.1 Robert Garioch – Closing the gaps
4.2 Norman MacCaig – Distrusting Language
5. The 1960s and 1970s
5.1 Scottishness after Worl War II
5.2 Edwin Morgan – Morganmania
5.3 Douglas Dunn – Barbarous Voices
6. The 1980s and 1990s
6.1 Establishing the Scottish Parliament
6.2 Liz Lochhead – The Personal Angle
6.3 W.N. Herbert – Outside and Inside
6.4 Kathleen Jamie – Recontextualising stereotypes
7. Conclusion
Objectives and Core Themes
This paper explores the literary impact of Hugh MacDiarmid on 20th-century Scottish poetry, specifically examining the interplay between literature, the usage of the Scots vernacular, and the construction of national identity from the Scottish Renaissance through to the late 1990s.
- The role of Hugh MacDiarmid as a catalyst for the Scottish Renaissance.
- The evolution of the Scots language as a medium for both high literature and modern experimentalism.
- The relationship between national identity and the political evolution of Scotland.
- Comparative analysis of MacDiarmid’s work alongside contemporaries like Robert Garioch and Norman MacCaig.
- The recontextualization of Scottishness and stereotypes by later poets such as Liz Lochhead and Kathleen Jamie.
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3.3 A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is the first long Scottish poem of the twentieth century and it transfers MacDiarmid’s political propaganda from the Northern Review and The Scottish Chapbook into one of his finest writings. As Crawford points out validly, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle “may be seen as an anthology rather than a single unit”. The title already shows the parodist undertone of the poem, because it refers to a number of similar titles by other writers like “An American Looks at His World” published shortly before 1926. The self-importance and pomp these titles promoted was intended to be undermined by MacDiarmid. The setting of the poem is a drunk man lying on a hillside contemplating about himself, his country and the human spirit – all this is evoked by the presence of a thistle, the national emblem of Scotland.
The contemplations of the drunk man are presented in a stream-of consciousness, which MacDiarmid admired in particular in the work of James Joyce. The sudden and frequent change of subject in this stream-of consciousness can be explained with the drunken state of the speaker. As already mentioned before, the poem deals with those topics MacDiarmid had propagated before in his essays. Thus, the assumption that the drunken person is a medium for the author himself stands to reason. He does not depict the thoughts of the speaker as being the clouded bosh of a modern Tam o’ Shanter, but uses the insobriety of the speaker to free his mind to “reach out and explore spiritual and material reality.”
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter defines the scope of the study, situating the Scottish Renaissance movement within global literature and outlining the research focus on the evolution of Scottish national identity.
2. Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance: This section details the life and ideological development of MacDiarmid, focusing on his initiation of the movement and his desire to liberate the Scots language.
3. The Poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid: This chapter provides an analytical deep dive into specific, pivotal works of MacDiarmid, covering his shifts in style from romantic imagery to synthetic language and eventually scientific, prosaic discourse.
4. MacDiarmid’s Contemporaries: This part examines the literary responses and counter-approaches of figures like Robert Garioch and Norman MacCaig, focusing on their distinct linguistic and stylistic choices.
5. The 1960s and 1970s: This section analyzes how the post-war generation, specifically Edwin Morgan and Douglas Dunn, navigated shifting political landscapes and modernized the portrayal of urban Scottish life.
6. The 1980s and 1990s: This chapter explores the late 20th-century developments, focusing on how female poets like Liz Lochhead and Kathleen Jamie deconstructed gendered stereotypes of Scottish identity.
7. Conclusion: This chapter summarizes the lasting legacy of MacDiarmid’s experiments and evaluates the current, pluralistic state of Scottish identity and literature in a modern, autonomous political context.
Keywords
Hugh MacDiarmid, Scottish Renaissance, Scots Vernacular, National Identity, Modernism, Postmodernism, Synthetic Scots, Lallans, Edwin Morgan, Liz Lochhead, Kathleen Jamie, Douglas Dunn, Robert Garioch, Scottish Parliament, Cultural Autonomy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental focus of this research?
The paper examines the literary influence of Hugh MacDiarmid on modern Scottish poetry and how subsequent generations of poets engaged with his concepts of language and national identity.
Which thematic fields are central to this study?
The core themes include the revival of the Scots language, the construction of national identity, gender dynamics in literature, and the transition from Modernist to Postmodernist literary practices in Scotland.
What is the primary goal of the author?
The author aims to trace the evolution of Scottish poetry throughout the 20th century to see if MacDiarmid’s early conceptions of national identity remain applicable in a post-devolution Scotland.
What scientific methods were applied?
The work utilizes a combination of literary analysis, historical context setting, and comparative biographical research to map the evolution of poetical styles and political ideologies.
What topics are discussed in the main body?
The main body covers the ideological foundations of the Scottish Renaissance, specific analyses of MacDiarmid’s key poetic works, and the subsequent responses by major 20th-century Scottish poets.
Which keywords best characterize this work?
Key terms include Scottish Renaissance, Scots Vernacular, National Identity, Synthetic Scots, and the analysis of individual poets like Morgan, Lochhead, and Jamie.
How does the work address the transition of MacDiarmid from Scots to English?
The author explains this shift not as a failure, but as a strategic decision driven by the author's desire for linguistic flexibility and his attempt to incorporate scientific discourse into poetry.
What significance is attributed to the later works of Liz Lochhead?
The author highlights Liz Lochhead’s role in using demotic, colloquial speech to challenge patriarchal structures and introduce a distinctly female voice into the traditionally male-dominated Scottish literary scene.
How does the study interpret the role of Kathleen Jamie?
Kathleen Jamie is presented as a poet who uses stereotypes to parody masculine labeling, thereby promoting a pluralistic and modern understanding of what it means to be Scottish.
- Quote paper
- Ines Ramm (Author), 2006, Hugh MacDiarmid and his influence on modern Scottish poetry - language and national identity , Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/65637
