[LMB] Re: "Mercenaries! With a glad cry..."

[B. Ross Ashley]

About Hugh Mac Diarmid, Katherine Collett wrote:
 > I don't know--according to the Norton Anthology, MacDiarmid
 > mostly wrote (invented, in fact) a new Scottish form? body?
 > of poetry. "Another Epitaph" was written in 1935, though,
 > so not directly war-inspired itself.

Mac Diarmid is chiefly noted for helping to invent the modern literary 
language "Lallans", based on the Lowland Scots language of medieval 
Scotland, which although close to English is, he would insist, as much a 
separate language as Oosters or Flemish is from modern Netherlands 
Dutch. He was, not too surprisingly, a Scots Nationalist in his 
politics, and a Marxist by inclination.

His poetry is not so good as Housman's is, although I agree with his 
sentiment in this fragment more than I do Housman. But then I don't 
necessarily associate poetic ability with ideology ... I love Ezra 
Pound's poetry, although I would regretfully shoot the Fascist so-and-so.

-- 
B. Ross Ashley
http://brashley46.livejournal.com
http://brashley46.no-ip.info
"It would be too painful to think that there are worlds somewhere
where I got everything right."  Sulien, in _The King's Name_, by Jo Walton
Registered Linux user # 402119
All emails viruschecked by KlamAV