Hugh MacDiarmid is widely considered the most significant Scottish poet since Robert Burns and the major literary force in twentieth-century Scottish culture. His poetry is both compelling in its intellectual challenge and captivating in its lyrical beauty. This book explores the principal thematic and aesthetic preoccupations in MacDiarmid's work, relating his poetry to key national and international concerns in modern culture and politics. It offers a vital updating of MacDiarmid scholarship through contributions by leading scholars of the modern period which provide a contextual and interpretive guide to this challenging writer. All of MacDiarmid's major poetic works are examined in addition to a representative selection of his diverse output in other genres, from journalism to shorter fiction, autobiography and political polemic. His poetry and his place in the cultural history of Scottish, British and international modernism will be contemporised through consideration of his significance from a European, transatlantic and ecological global perspective.
This collection of essays on MacDiarmid will draw on the creative and discursive writings made newly available through the recent publication of previously uncollected work. Key features: * Updates and internationalises MacDiarmid studies * Provides informed analysis and contextualisation of MacDiarmid's poetry through close readings of texts * Utilises recently published MacDiarmid material * Contributes to a re-drawing of the map of international literary modernism