The
stories we tell and pass on through our songs and poets inform and illuminate
who we are, how we wish others to see us and how we view our future and
past.
I studied
higher 'English' at school and also at college in Edinburgh. I am sad that I
never learnt of Burn's story or of other Scottish stories or poets. Has Scottish history, arts and music been
suppressed the past decades? Of course it has! - and often deliberately. Robert Crawford mentions how the
establishment sought to 'tone down' Robert Burns.
** THE SCOTTISH VISIONARIES
In the 1930s there was a Scottish Enlightenment that happened in
Montrose led by poet Hugh MacDiarmid. He
is one of Scotland's leading contemporary poets and a founding member of
Scotland's national party.
*Liz
Lochhead, Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. She has been the
Scottish Makar 2011 - 2016, or National
Poet of Scotland. She is a great character and I have met her and taken her
photo at Edinburgh International book festival (EIBF).
* James
MacPherson
I read of
the Ossian poems and their effect on Robert Burns. When I went to research this
blog I was astonished at his story! (more on another blog) The author
of the epic poems of Ossian - supposedly about the Celtic hero Fingal (more
later). At this time in the late 18th century there was a rebirth in romantic
thinking which led to the Romantic movement and had a big impact on all the
arts in Europe. Macpherson tapped into this revival and had huge international success.
Today most accept that he used poetic licence to create his own Celtic
hero.
According to
the clan Donald site Fingal of the Ossian poems was based on the Greatest Hero
of the Celtic Race - (Somerled)
Somhairlidh mac Gillebride mhic Gilledomnan.
(and not an ancient Irish hero as some made out at all). Did Macpherson equate the
Scottish hero to Irish legend, in order to have his works published at all? At
this time, after the Jacobite 45 wars, Highland culture was being severely
repressed (the punishment was Transportation) Poetic license in other words -
and one of the beauties of poetry - that we can express ideas, concepts and
beliefs we cannot so clearly in prose. The
Scottish Highlands suddenly became a place of great beauty and romance - rather
than one of wild warriors and hardships.
*Robert
Burns. Then there is of course our
very famous national bard , the incomparable Robert Burns, who is revered and admired the world over. Especially
in Russia, where they value the great emotional sweep that Burns expresses in
his poetry. In the footnotes to his
first Book of Poems Mostly in the Scots Dialect 1786, Burns mentionedcxccc
Ossian and how he too wanted to be a national bard. After this other countries,
such as England, also wanted to have a national poet.
SCOTTISH
POETS
Robert
Burns, Robert Fergusson, Edwin Morgan, Walter Scott, James MacPherson,
Hamish
Henderson, Frances Wright, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur
Conan Doyle, Liz Lochhead, Hugh MacDiarmid, Jackie Kay, Norman MacCaig, Sorley
MacLean .... and more.
Scottish
Writers Museum?
We lack a serious and expansive writers museum in Edinburgh on the scale
of Dublin's which is housed in a impressive Georgian mansion - most of our great writers are not represented
properly. It is a massive disgrace. I believe there is talk of housing a new decent
sized Scottish Writers Museum perhaps
near the Scottish National Library in George IV bridge? The present one is in Lady Stairs Close up a
winding narrow staircase has poor access. And only houses three Scottish
writers - Burns, Scott and Stevenson.
I heard an Irish lady remark at Celtic - when I mentioned the Scottish
Writers museum and the wonderful Irish writers museum she remarked that
Scotland had few great writers!
The
Scottish Visionaries. One of the
highly interesting aspects of the SNP and Scottish nationalism is that it is
primarily inclusive and outward looking. Is this because it was started by visionary
poets - Robert Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid and others?
What is
civic nationalism?
It is not
about any national superiority or about being narrow and inward looking - as compared to other
right wing nationalist parties. Rather it is about our past stories.
