Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Where Extremes Meet: Hugh MacDiarmid in the Period After World War One

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities ((PSMLC))

  • 108 Accesses

Abstract

In 1922 Christopher Murray Grieve adopted the pen name ‘Hugh MacDiarmid’. The writer who had consistently condemned the use of Scots became the best-known Scots poet of the twentieth century. He had been stationed in Greece and France during the First World War and came home determined to rescue the Scots language. Instead of lamenting its past glories and acquiescing in its decline, he resolved to find new ways to use it.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    David Lloyd George’s phrase from a speech given at Wolverhampton on 23 November 1918.

  2. 2.

    MacDiarmid (2008, l. 2650), ‘tak’ it to avizandum’ can be explained as ‘defer decision’, take time to consider one’s judgement.

  3. 3.

    John MacCormick’s Dùn-Àluinn, no, an t-Oighre’na Dhiobarach (Dunaline or the Banished Heir), 1912, Angus Robertson’s An t-Ogha Mór (The Great Grandchild), 1913 and James Macleod’s Cailin Sgiathanach (Skye Girl), 1923.

  4. 4.

    Fionn Mac Colla is the pen name of Thomas Douglas MacDonald (1906–1975); cf. Bold (1984, 566) as regards MacDiarmid’s appreciation.

  5. 5.

    PEN: Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Novelists. PEN International is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921.

  6. 6.

    From: Josef Svatopluk Machar, ‘Golgotha’ (1902), published in translation in Coterie: A Quarterly, Art, Prose and Poetry, 1920–1921, Nos. 6 and 7, 97–99.

  7. 7.

    The abbreviated form ‘Hugh M’Diarmid’ was used in the 1920s; ‘Hugh MacDiarmid’, the pseudonym by which he is now commonly known, in the 1930s.

  8. 8.

    A radio journal, founded by the Scottish novelist Compton Mackenzie.

References

  • American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). (2011). Retrieved March 5, 2020, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/.

  • Bakhtin, M. (1973). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (R. W. Rotsel, Trans.). Ann Arbor: Ardis.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bakhtin, M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (C. Emerson, Trans.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnaby, P., & Hubbard, T. (2007). The International Reception and Literary Impact of Scottish Literature of the Period Since 1918. In I. Brown, et al. (Eds.), The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: Modern Transformations: New Identities (from 1918) (Vol. 3pp. 31–41). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bold, A. (Ed.). (1984). The Letters of Hugh MacDiarmid. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bold, A. (1988). MacDiarmid: Christopher Murray Grieve, a Critical Biography. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boutelle, A. E. (1981). Thistle and Rose: A Study of Hugh MacDiarmid’s Poetry. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brand, J. (1978). The National Movement in Scotland. London, Henley, and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bru, S. (2011). The Prism of Propaganda: Hugh MacDiarmid’s Modernism and the Belgian Literary Revival. Scottish Literary Review, 3(1), 43–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruce, G. (1984). MacDiarmid at Eighty-Five. In H. MacDiarmid, The Thistle Rises: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (pp. 274–285.). London: H. Hamilton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buthlay, K. (2008). ‘Introduction’ and ‘Notes’. In H. MacDiarmid, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (pp. 1–46). Edinburgh: Polygon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, R. J. (1981). Industrialization. In D. Daiches (Ed.), A Companion to Scottish Culture (pp. 176–181). London: Edward Arnold.

    Google Scholar 

  • Claes, K. (2012). “What to Naturalists Is Known as a Symbiosis”: Literature, Community and Nature in the Evergreen. Scottish Literary Review, 4(1), 111–129.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corbett, J., McClure, J. D., & Stuart-Smith, J. (2003). A Brief History of Scots. In J. Corbett, J. D. McClure, & J. Stuart-Smith (Eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Scots (pp. 1–15). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corbett, J., & Stuart-Smith, J. (2012). Standard English in Scotland. In R. Hickey (Ed.), Standards of English: Codified Varieties Around the World (pp. 72–95). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coupland, R. (1954). Welsh and Scottish Nationalism: A Study. London: Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cox, R. A. V. (2007). The Gaelic Book. In D. Finkelstein & A. McCleery (Eds.), The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Professionalism and Diversity, 1880–2000 (Vol. 4, pp. 277–294). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craig, C. (Ed.). (1987). The History of Scottish Literature: Twentieth Century (Vol. 4). Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Craig, C. (2007). The Study of Scottish Literature. In I. Brown, et al. (Eds.), The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: From Columba to the Union (Until 1707) (Vol. 1, pp. 16–31). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, T. (1979). Autobiographical Anatomist: Notes on the Collected MacDiarmid. Chapman: Scotland’s Quality Literary Magazine, 23/24, p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, R. (2000). Devolving English Literature (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cruickshank, H. B. (1976). Octobiography. Montrose Scotland: Standard Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eddie, G. D. (2015). MacDiarmid and “Nisbet: An Interlude in Post-War Glasgow”. Retrieved March 5, 2020, from http://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/edinburghuniversityarchives/2015/08/10/macdiarmid-and-nisbet-an-interlude-in-post-war-glasgow/.

  • Elder, R. I. (2002). The Young Scots Society. Journal of Liberal Democrat History, 36(Autumn), 13–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eliot, T. S. (2004). Was There a Scottish Literature? (Athenaeum August 1919). In M. P. McCulloch (Ed.), Modernism and Nationalism: Literature and Society in Scotland, 1918–1939: Source Documents for the Scottish Renaissance (pp. 7–10). Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Department of Scottish History, University of Glasgow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, P. B. (1993). The Celtic Dawn: A History of Pan-Celticism. London: Constable.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finlay, R. J. (2001). Modern Times (1914–1990s): General. In M. Lynch (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (pp. 150–153). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finlay, R. J. (2004). Modern Scotland 1914–2000. London: Profile Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finlay, R. J. (2007). Changing Cultures: The History of Scotland Since 1918. In I. Brown, et al. (Eds.), The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: Modern Transformations—New Identities (from 1918) (Vol. 3, pp. 1–10). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finlay, R. J. (2012). The Interwar Crisis: The Failure of Extremism. In Oxford Handbooks Online (pp. 569–584). Retrieved March 3, 2020, from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com.proxy-ub.rug.nl/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199563692.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199563692-e-31.

  • Glen, D. (1964). Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve) and the Scottish Renaissance. Edinburgh: W. & R. Chambers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grieve, C. M. (1922a). The Chapbook Programme. The Scottish Chapbook, 1(1), iii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grieve, C. M. (1922b). Causerie. The Scottish Chapbook, 1(3), 62–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grieve, C. M. (1927). Albyn or Scotland and the Future. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grieve, C. M. (2004). Book Reviews. In M. P. McCulloch (Ed.), Modernism and Nationalism: Literature and Society in Scotland, 1918–1939: Source Documents for the Scottish Renaissance (p. 53). Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Department of Scottish History, University of Glasgow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, M. (2010). Nations of Nothing But Poetry: Modernism, Transnationalism, and Synthetic Vernacular Writing. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, S. (2007). Hugh MacDiarmid 1892–1978. Literature Online Biography. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http://gateway.proquest.com.proxy-ub.rug.nl/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2003&xri:pqil:res_ver=0.2&res_id=xri:lion&rft_id=xri:lion:rec:ref:BIO001368.

  • Junor, B. (Ed.). (2007). Scarcely Ever Out of My Thoughts: The Letters of Valda Trevlyn Grieve to C. M. Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid). Edinburgh: Word Power Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kay, B. (1993). Scots: The Mither Tongue. Darvel: Alloway Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kerrigan, C. (1987). Underground Men: Dostoevsky in the Work of Hugh MacDiarmid. The Journal of Narrative Technique, 17(1), 45–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leslie, A. (1992). The Politics and Poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid. In H. MacDiarmid, Selected Prose (pp. 201–219). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linklater, E. (1959). Magnus Merriman. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books (Reprint).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyall, S. (2006). Hugh MacDiarmid’s Poetry and Politics of Place: Imagining a Scottish Republic. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacAulay, D. (1992). The Scottish Gaelic Language. In D. MacAulay (Ed.), The Celtic Languages (pp. 137–248). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1934). The Case for Synthetic Scots. In H. MacDiarmid, At the Sign of the Thistle: A Collection of Essays (pp. 177–196). London: Stanley Nott.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1946). What’s Wrong with Scottish PEN. Scots Independent, 239, 5.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1966). The Company I’ve Kept. London: Hutchinson.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1970a). A Russo-Scottish Parallelism. In D. Glen (Ed.), Selected Essays of Hugh MacDiarmid (pp. 38–43). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1970b). The Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Gaelic Idea. In D. Glen (Ed.), Selected Essays of Hugh MacDiarmid (pp. 56–74). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1978). Complete Poems, 1920–1976. London: Martin Brian & O’Keeffe.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1984a). The Thistle Rises: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose. London: H. Hamilton.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1984b). Growing Up in Langholm. In H. MacDiarmid, The Thistle Rises: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (pp. 149–153). London: H. Hamilton.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1984c). Satori in Scotland. In H. MacDiarmid, The Thistle Rises: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (pp. 244–249). London: H. Hamilton.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1992a). A Theory of Scots Letters. In H. MacDiarmid, Selected Prose (pp. 16–33). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1992b). Programme for a Scottish Fascism. In H. MacDiarmid Selected Prose (pp. 34–38). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1994). Lucky Poet: A Self-Study in Literature and Political Ideas: Being the Autobiography of Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Murray Grieve). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1995). Edwin Muir. In H. MacDiarmid, Contemporary Scottish Studies (pp. 93–103). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1996a). Scotland and Belgium. In H. MacDiarmid, The Raucle Tongue: Hitherto Uncollected Prose: 1911–1926 (Vol. 1, pp. 28–30). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1996b). Plea for a Scottish Fascism. In H. MacDiarmid, The Raucle Tongue: Hitherto Uncollected Prose: 1911–1926 (Vol. 1, pp. 82–87). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1997a). Answers to an Enquiry. In H. MacDiarmid, The Raucle Tongue: Hitherto Uncollected Prose: 1927–1936 (Vol. 2, p. 528). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1997b). Scotland and the Arts. In H. MacDiarmid, The Raucle Tongue: Hitherto Uncollected Prose: 1927–1936 (Vol. 2, pp. 529–533). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1999a). Annals of the Five Senses and Other Stories, Sketches, and Plays. Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (1999b). Nisbet: An Interlude in Post War Glasgow. In H. MacDiarmid, Annals of the Five Senses and Other Stories, Sketches, and Plays (pp. 104–113). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDiarmid, H. (2008). A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle. Edinburgh: Polygon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macdonald, C. M. M. (2009). Whaur Extremes Meet: Scotland’s Twentieth Century. Edinburgh: John Donald.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mackay, J. (2001). Burns Clubs. In M. Lynch (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (pp. 58–59). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maclaren, J., (1997). Scotland and Europe. In H. MacDiarmid, The Raucle Tongue: Hitherto Uncollected Prose: 1927–1936 (Vol. 2, pp. 367–372). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macleod, M., & Watson, M. (2007). The Gaelic Short Story, Novel and Drama. In I. Brown (Period and General Editor), T. O. Clancy, S. Manning, & Pittock, M. (Co-Editors.), The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: Modern Transformations, New Identities (from 1918) (Vol. 3, pp. 273–282). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarey, P. (1987). Hugh MacDiarmid and the Russians. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McClure, J. D. (1988). Why Scots Matters. Edinburgh: Saltire Society in Association with the Scots Language Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • McClure, J. D. (1994). English in Scotland. In R. M. Hogg & R. W. Burchfield (Eds.), The Cambridge History of the English Language: English in Britain and Overseas—Origins and Development (Vol. 5, pp. 23–93). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McClure, J. D. (1995). Scots and Its Literature. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCulloch, M. P. (2004). Modernism and Nationalism: Literature and Society in Scotland, 1918–1939: Source Documents for the Scottish Renaissance. Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Department of Scottish History, University of Glasgow.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCulloch, M. P. (2007). Literary Publishing: 1914–45. In D. Finkelstein & A. McCleery (Eds.), The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Professionalism and Diversity, 1880–2000 (Vol. 4, pp. 223–249). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCulloch, M. P. (2009). Scottish Modernism and Its Contexts 1918–1959: Literature, National Identity and Cultural Exchange. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDermott, J. R. (2007). Robert Burns the Scottish Bard: Prescriptivism, Poetic Primitivism, and the Status of Scots in the Eighteenth Century. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/eng6365-mcdermott.htm.

  • McGill, A. (1995). Towards a Scottish Renaissance (from The Scottish Educational Journal, 16 January 1925). In H. MacDiarmid, Contemporary Scottish Studies (pp. 1–5). Manchester: Carcanet.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mirsky, D. S. (1925). Modern Russian Literature. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muir, E. (1936). Scott and Scotland: The Predicament of the Scottish Writer. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nikulin, D. (2006). On Dialogue. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niven, L., & MacLeod, I. (2002). Scots: The Scots Language in Education in Scotland. Ljouwert/Leeuwarden: Mercator-Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Power, W. (1937). Should Auld Acquaintance …: An Autobiography. London: Harrap.

    Google Scholar 

  • Purdie, B. (2012). Hugh MacDiarmid: Black, Green, Red and Tartan. Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, S. (1992). Essentials in Organizational Behavior. London: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, R. H. (2010). “…A Bit o’ Heaven doon into Hell”: Scottish PEN, Hugh MacDiarmid and the Public Intellectual Then—And Now. Scottish Affairs, 70, 49–63.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, B. (2001). Gaelic: The Gaelic Language in Education in the UK. Ljouwert/Leeuwarden: Mercator-Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, M. (2001). Scots Language. In M. Lynch (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (pp. 572–574). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saurat, D. (2004). Le Groupe de “la Renaissance Écossaise”. In M. P. McCulloch (Ed.), Modernism and Nationalism: Literature and Society in Scotland, 1918–1939: Source Documents for the Scottish Renaissance (pp. 53–54). Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, Department of Scottish History, University of Glasgow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. London: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vernon, T. (1984). Valedictory. In H. MacDiarmid, The Thistle Rises: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (pp. 286–294). London: H. Hamilton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, R. (2004). Grieve, Christopher Murray. In H. C. G. Matthew & B. H. Harrison (Eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Vol. 23, pp. 918–925). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, C. H. (2008). Linguistic Minorities in Democratic Context. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, G. (1977). MacDiarmid: An Illustrated Biography of Christopher Murray Grieve (Hugh MacDiarmid). Edinburgh: Gordon Wright.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tresoar, Frysk Histoarysk en Letterkundich Sintrum, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

    Jelle Krol

Authors
  1. Jelle Krol
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jelle Krol .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Krol, J. (2020). Where Extremes Meet: Hugh MacDiarmid in the Period After World War One. In: Minority Language Writers in the Wake of World War One. Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52040-3_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52040-3_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-52039-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-52040-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation