Editing Sorley MacLean (section)

==Legacy==
[[Hugh MacDiarmid]] wrote a letter to MacLean in 1977, a year before his death, stating that he and MacLean were the best Scottish poets of the twentieth century.<ref name=library/> MacDiarmid and MacLean influenced each other's work and maintained an extensive correspondence which has been published.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Correspondence Between Hugh MacDiarmid and Sorley MacLean: An Annotated Edition |url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-correspondence-between-hugh-macdiarmid-and-sorley-maclean-9780748639809?cc=us&lang=en& |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=17 August 2018 |date=8 April 2010}}</ref> Douglas Young wrote that "the best poetry written in our generation in the British Isles has been in Scottish Gaelic, by Sorley MacLean."{{r|Eerde|p=229}} John MacInnes called him a "magisterial writer" who "[pushed] Gaelic to its limits". He said that it is "truly astonishing" that Gaelic, so long [[Minoritized language|minoritized]], could have produced a writer like MacLean, who could not express what he had to say in any other language: "Somhairle MacGill-Eain needed Gaelic, and Gaelic needed Somhairle MacGill-Eain".{{r|MacInnes|p=417}} According to Iain Crichton Smith, translator of MacLean's poetry, ''Dàin do Eimhir'' was "the greatest Gaelic book of this century", an assessment with which Christopher Whyte agreed.{{r|thesis|p=67}} According to Maoilios Caimbeul, MacLean was the best Scottish Gaelic poet of all time.{{r|MC|p=1}} Smith compared the calibre of MacLean's love poetry to that of [[Catallus]] and William Butler Yeats. Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney said that MacLean had "saved Gaelic poetry... for all time".<ref name=larach/>

While acknowledging the literary merit of MacLean's work, Whyte suggested that it was unfortunate that in the 1980s it stood in for all Scottish Gaelic poetry in the Anglophone world. According to Whyte, MacLean's poetry is "comparatively unGaelic, elitist rather than populist, and permeable only with difficulty to the community which uses the language in its day to day existence".{{r|thesis|pp=67–68}} MacInnes concedes that MacLean does not cater to his readers; however, in his opinion it would be incorrect to call the poetry elitist because of its "artistic sincerity", speaking "with affective directness and a simple passionate intensity".{{r|MacInnes|p=417}} Compounding the difficulty is that the traditional medium of Gaelic poetry is song, and many fluent speakers do not have strong reading skills.{{r|thesis|pp=66–7}}{{r|MC|p=3}} In an effort to make MacLean's work more accessible to Scottish Gaelic speakers, the Sorley MacLean Trust commissioned several musicians{{efn-lr|[[Stuart MacRae (composer)|Stuart MacRae]], [[Mary Ann Kennedy (Scottish singer)|Mary Ann Kennedy]], [[Eilidh Mackenzie]], Marie-Louise Napier, [[MacDonald Brothers|Allan Macdonald]], Blair Douglas, Allan Henderson, [[Donald Shaw (musician)|Donald Shaw]], and Kenneth Thomson<ref>{{cite web |title=Hallaig: A Musical Celebration of the Poetry of Sorley MacLean |url=http://www.thesorleymacleantrust.org.uk/files/A5-Hallaig.pdf |publisher=The Sorley MacLean Trust |access-date=19 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180819114349/http://www.thesorleymacleantrust.org.uk/files/A5-Hallaig.pdf |archive-date=19 August 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>}} to set some of MacLean's poems to music.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mathieson |first1=Kenny |title=Blas 2011: Hallaig, A Musical Celebration of Sorley MacLean |date=19 September 2011 |url=http://northings.com/2011/09/19/hallaig-a-musical-celebration-of-sorley-maclean/ |access-date=18 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180818115349/http://northings.com/2011/09/19/hallaig-a-musical-celebration-of-sorley-maclean/ |archive-date=18 August 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Hallaig – A Celebration of Sorley MacLean |url=http://www.thesorleymacleantrust.org.uk/english/files/press-release.pdf |publisher=Urras Shomhairle – The Sorley MacLean Trust |access-date=18 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180818115357/http://www.thesorleymacleantrust.org.uk/english/files/press-release.pdf |archive-date=18 August 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{r|MC|p=2}}

[[File:Runrig concert, Inverness, Aug 2012.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|MacLean once gave a poetry reading at a [[Runrig]] concert.]]

In the Gaelic-speaking world, MacLean's influence has been pervasive and persistent. Poet [[Aonghas MacNeacail]] started writing in English, because "My education gave me to believe that Gaelic literature was dead"; he credited MacLean with convincing him otherwise and inspiring him to write in Gaelic. The Gaelic rock band [[Runrig]] once invited MacLean to come onstage for a poetry reading.{{r|saviour}} However, MacLean had less impact on rural Gaelic-speaking communities. Novelist [[Angus Peter Campbell]] wrote that he preferred the work of local [[Uist]] [[village bard|bards]] to MacLean, and he believed that other Uist people felt the same.{{r|thesis|p=68}} Australian poet [[Les Murray (poet)|Les Murray]] acknowledged MacLean's influence on his work.{{r|contexts|p=5}}

A film, ''Hallaig'', was made in 1984 by Timothy Neat, including a discussion by MacLean of the dominant influences on his poetry, with commentary by Smith and Heaney, and substantial passages from the poem and other work, along with extracts of Gaelic song.{{r|Birt|p=193}} The poem also forms part of the lyrics of [[Peter Maxwell Davies]]' opera ''The Jacobite Rising'';<ref>{{cite book |last1=McGregor |first1=Richard |title=Perspectives on Peter Maxwell Davies |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-55435-0 |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yS4rDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA90 |language=en}}</ref> and MacLean's own reading of it in English and in Gaelic was sampled by [[Martyn Bennett]] in his album ''[[Bothy Culture]]'' for a track of the same name.<ref>{{cite news |title=Obituary: Martyn Bennett |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-martyn-bennett-1528367.html |access-date=17 August 2018 |work=The Independent |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180818072351/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-martyn-bennett-1528367.html |archive-date=18 August 2018 }}</ref>

A controversy erupted in 2000, when [[John MacLeod of MacLeod|John MacLeod]], [[chief of Clan MacLeod]], put the [[Black Cuillin]] mountain range of Skye on the market in order to finance the repair of [[Dunvegan Castle]]. His real estate agency, [[Savills]], used excerpts from ''An Cuilthionn'' to advertise the property. Many people found this to be an inappropriate use of MacLean's work. Savills apologized unreservedly, which was accepted by Renee MacLean.<ref>{{cite web |last1=MacQueen |first1=H. |title=(86) Sorley Maclean, copyright and the sale of mountains |url=http://www.sln.law.ed.ac.uk/1998/11/27/86-sorley-maclean-copyright-and-the-sale-of-mountains/ |website=Scots Law News |date=27 November 1998 |access-date=30 August 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830174119/http://www.sln.law.ed.ac.uk/1998/11/27/86-sorley-maclean-copyright-and-the-sale-of-mountains/ |archive-date=30 August 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Ross |first1=David |title=Cuillins seller apologises to poet's family; Use of Sorley Maclean's poem in advertising literature 'not appropriate' |url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-23820298.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830110458/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-23820298.html |archive-date=30 August 2018 |work=[[The Herald (Glasgow)|The Herald]] |date=12 October 2000}}</ref>