Editing Sorley MacLean (section)

==Poetry==
===Influences===

Before he went to university, MacLean was writing in both English and Gaelic.<ref name=larach/>{{efn-lr|He later described his English poetry as "mostly imitative of Eliot and Pound... over-sophisticated, over-self-conscious".{{r|Gaeilge|p=5}}}} After writing a Gaelic poem, ''A' Chorra-ghritheach'' ("The Heron"), in 1932, he decided to write only in Gaelic and burned his earlier poems.{{r|contexts|p=2}} MacLean later said, "I was not one who could write poetry if it did not come to me in spite of myself, and if it came, it had to come in Gaelic".{{r|MacInnes|p=417}} However, it is also clear from his correspondence with MacDiarmid that his choice was also motivated by his determination to preserve and develop the Gaelic language.{{r|thesis|p=77, 155}} The Gaelic language had been in decline for several centuries; the 1931 census registered 136,135 Gaelic speakers in Scotland, only 3% of the Scottish population.{{r|MacAulay|p=141}} Despite his decision to write in the language, at times MacLean doubted that [[language death|Gaelic would survive]] and his poetry would be appreciated.{{r|culture of translation|p=4}}{{efn-lr|In 1943, he wrote in a letter to Hugh MacDiarmid: "The whole prospect of Gaelic appals me, the more I think of the difficulties and the likelihood of its extinction in a generation or two. A ... language with ... no modern prose of any account, no philosophical or technical vocabulary to speak of, no correct usage except among old people and a few university students, colloquially full of gross English idiom lately taken over... (what chance of the appreciation of the overtones of poetry, except amongst a handful?)"{{r|culture of translation|p=4}}}}

For 1,500 years, [[Scottish Gaelic literature]] had developed a rich corpus of song and poetry across "literary, sub-literary, and non-literate" [[register (sociolinguistics)|registers]]; it retained the ability to convey "an astonishingly wide range of human experience".{{r|MacInnes|p=392-3}} MacLean's work drew on this "inherited wealth of immemorial generations";{{r|MacInnes|p=393}} according to MacInnes, few people were as intimately familiar with the entire corpus of Gaelic poetry, written and oral, as MacLean.{{r|MacInnes|p=416}} In particular, MacLean was inspired by the intense love poetry of [[Uilleam Ros|William Ross]], written in the eighteenth century.{{r|thesis|p=67}} Of all poetry, MacLean held in highest regard the Scottish Gaelic songs composed before the nineteenth century by anonymous, illiterate poets and passed down via the oral tradition.{{r|larach}}{{r|open|p=17}}{{r|MacInnes|p=397}} He once said that Scottish Gaelic song-poetry was "the chief artistic glory of the Scots, and of all people of Celtic speech, and one of the greatest artistic glories of Europe".{{r|open|p=17}}

[[File:Испанская 11 интербригада в бою под Бельчите. 1937-edit.jpg|thumb|Members of the [[XI International Brigade]] at the [[Battle of Belchite (1937)|Battle of Belchite]]]]

MacLean once said that various Communist figures meant more to him than any poet, writing to Douglas Young in 1941 that "[[Lenin]], [[Stalin]] and [[Georgi Dimitrov|Dimitroff]] now mean more to me than [[Prometheus (disambiguation)|Prometheus]]<!-- It's unclear which Prometheus he's referring to; probably one of the poems --> and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]] did in my teens".{{r|contexts|p=4}} Other left-wing figures that inspired MacLean included [[James Connolly]], an Irish [[trade union]] leader executed for leading the [[Easter Rising]]; [[John Maclean (Scottish socialist)|John Maclean]], Scottish socialist and pacifist; and [[John Cornford]], [[Julian Bell]], and [[Federico García Lorca]], who were killed by the [[Francoist regime]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]].{{r|contexts|p=4}} Many of these figures were not Gaels, and some critics have noted MacLean's unusual generosity to non-Gaelic people in his work.{{r|open|p=34}} Perhaps the one uniting theme in his work is MacLean's [[Egalitarianism|anti-elitism]] and focus on social justice.{{r|open|p=37}}

Nevertheless, MacLean read widely and was influenced by poets from a variety of styles and eras. Of contemporary poets, Hugh MacDiarmid, [[Ezra Pound]],<ref name=two/> and [[William Butler Yeats]] had the greatest impact.{{r|contexts|p=3}} After reading ''[[A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle]]'' by MacDiarmid, MacLean decided to try his hand at extended narrative poetry, resulting in the unfinished ''An Cuilthionn''.{{r|day|p=145}} He was also influenced by the [[Metaphysical school]]. However, he disdained the popular left-wing poets of the 1930s, such as [[W. H. Auden]] or [[Stephen Spender]], and sometimes regarded poetry as a useless aesthetic hobby.{{r|contexts|p=4}}

===''Dàin do Eimhir''===
{{further|Dàin do Eimhir}}

In 1940, eight of MacLean's poems were printed in ''17 Poems for 6d'', along with Scots poems by Robert Garioch.{{r|Scottish Poetry |p=154}} The pamphlet sold better than expected and was reprinted a few weeks later; it received favourable reviews.{{r|publications}} While MacLean was in North Africa, he left his poetry with Douglas Young, who had promised to help publish it.<ref name="world" /> In November 1943, the poems were published as ''{{lang|gd|Dàin do Eimhir agus Dàin Eile}}'' ({{langx|en|Poems to Eimhir and Other Poems}}).{{efn-lr|''Dàin do Eimhir'' was published primarily in Gaelic, but included MacLean's prose translations of some poems in a smaller font.<ref name="publications" />{{r|thesis|p=57}}}} ''[[Dàin do Eimhir]]'' was a sequence of sixty numbered poems, with twelve missing;{{efn-lr|Some poems were omitted because MacLean doubted their quality; others were left out due to their personal content.{{r|displacement|p=5}} He asked Young to destroy the unpublished poems, but Young refused. All but one poem survived to be published in [[Christopher Whyte]]'s critical edition in 2002.<ref name=jstor>{{cite journal |last1=Begnal |first1=Michael S. |title=Gràdh, Grá, Grá |journal=The Poetry Ireland Review |year=2002 |issue=75 |pages=73–77 |jstor=25580090 }}</ref>{{rp|73}}}} of the other poems, the most significant was the long narrative poem ''An Cuilthionn''.<ref name="publications" />{{efn-lr|''An Cuilthionn'' was written between 1939 and 1940, never finished, but published anyway.<ref name="two" />}} The book marked a sharp break in style and substance of Gaelic poetry from earlier eras.<ref name=larach/> In his poetry, MacLean emphasized the struggle between love and duty, which was personified in the poet's difficulty in choosing between his infatuation with a female figure, Eimhir, and what he sees as his moral obligation to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War.<ref name=library/><ref name=larach/>

[[File:Main ridge of the cuillin in skye arp.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|The [[Cuillin]] inspired MacLean's poetry]]

The book has been the subject of scholarly debate. Attempting to explain why MacLean's earlier poetry has had the greatest influence, [[Derick Thomson]] wrote that it is love poetry which is most timeless, while MacLean's political poetry has not aged as well.<ref name=larach/>{{efn-lr|Ronald Black disagreed with this analysis, citing a student of his who chose MacLean's little-known poem ''A' Ghort Mhòr'' ({{langx|en|[[Great Famine (Ireland)|The Great Famine]]}}) for a class presentation. Asked why, she replied, "it is relevant to today, rather than all that stuff about love".{{r|Black|p=74}}}} According to [[Maoilios Caimbeul]], "There is not, and I doubt there will ever be, a series of love poems" that would have as much influence on Gaelic literature.{{efn-lr|"Chan eil, agus tha teagamh agam nach bi, sreath de dhàin ghaoil ann an litreachas na Gàidhlig a thig an uisge-stiùrach nan dàn seo."{{r|MC|p=5}}}} [[Ronald Black (critic)|Ronald Black]] suggested that "duty [is not]... a comprehensible emotion nowadays" and therefore "the greatest universal in MacLean's verse is the depiction of that extraordinary psychosis which is called being in love".{{r|Black|p=63}} However, this type of commentary has been criticized as an attempt to depoliticize MacLean's work. Seamus Heaney argued that Eimhir was similar to [[Beatrice Portinari|Beatrice]] in [[Dante]]'s ''[[Divine Comedy]]'', in that Eimhir "resolves at a symbolic level tensions which would otherwise be uncontainable or wasteful".{{r|open|p=33-4|Heaney}} Scottish poet [[Iain Crichton Smith]] said, "there is a sense in which the Spanish Civil War does not form the background to these poems, but is the protagonist".{{r|open|p=31}}

MacLean's work was innovative and influential because it juxtaposed elements from Gaelic history and tradition with icons from mainstream European history. He described his poetry as "radiating from Skye and the West Highlands to the whole of Europe".{{r|contexts|p=4}}{{r|MC|p=7}} By this juxtaposition, he implicitly asserted the value of the Gaelic tradition and the right of Gaels to participate as equals in the broader cultural landscape.<ref name=library/> According to [[John MacInnes (Gaelic scholar)|John MacInnes]], MacLean put the much-denigrated Gaelic language and tradition in its proper place, which has a profound effect on Gaelic-speaking readers and is fundamental to their reading of his poetry.{{r|MacInnes|p=393}} ''An Cuilthionn'', the mountains of Skye are used as a [[synecdoche]] for rifts in European politics, and the suffering of the Gaels due to the Highland Clearances is compared to the suffering of European people under [[Francoism]] and other fascist regimes.<ref name=library/><ref name="two" /> MacLean frequently compared the injustice of the Highland Clearances with modern-day issues;{{r|Czech|p=133}} in his opinion, the greed of the wealthy and powerful was responsible for many tragedies and social problems.{{r|Czech|p=134}}

The book won him recognition as "the major force in modern Gaelic poetry", according to ''[[The Cambridge Companion to British Poetry]]''.{{r|Scottish Poetry|p=153}} Caimbeul writes that the poems "capture the uncertainty, pain, yearning, and the search for stability that are at the heart of Modernism".{{efn-lr|"Tha e a' ciallachadh gu bheil na Dàin seo a' glacadh a' mhì-chinnt, am pian, an sireadh, an t-iarraidh airson nì seasmhach a tha aig cridhe Nuadhachais".{{r|MC|p=7}}}} Summarizing the impact of the book, Professor [[Donald MacAulay]] wrote, "After the publication of this book Gaelic poetry could never be the same again."<ref name=world/>

===Recognition===
{{further|Hallaig}}
{{quote box|align=right|width=27em|How many people know that the best living Scottish poet, by a whole head and shoulders, after the two major figures in this century, [[Edwin Muir]] and [[Hugh MacDiarmid]], is not any of the English writing poets, but Sorley MacLean? Yet he alone takes his place easily and indubitably beside these two major poets: and he writes only in Gaelic [...] That Sorley MacLean is a great poet in the Gaelic tradition, a man not merely for time, but for eternity, I have no doubt whatever.|source=[[Tom Scott (poet)|Tom Scott]], 1970{{r|Hendry|p=9}}}}
Although his poetry had a profound impact on the Gaelic-speaking world, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that MacLean's work became accessible in English translation.<ref name="larach"/>{{r|Birt|p=193}} His poetry was not very accessible to Gaelic speakers either, since ''Dàin do Eimhir'' was not reprinted.{{r|MC|p=2}}{{r|Hendry|p=9}} To English-speakers, MacLean remained virtually unknown until 1970, when issue 34 of ''[[Lines Review]]'' was dedicated to his work and some of his poems were reproduced in the anthology ''Four Points of the Saltire.'' In the preface to the collection, [[Tom Scott (poet)|Tom Scott]] forcefully argued for the merit of MacLean's poetry.{{r|two}}{{r|Hendry|p=9}} Iain Crichton Smith published an English translation of ''Dàin do Eimhir'' in 1971.{{efn-lr|This edition only contained 36 of the poems in the Eimhir sequence,<ref name="publications" /> and did not reproduce the Gaelic originals.{{r|thesis|p=62}}}} MacLean was part of the delegation that represented Scotland at the first [[Cambridge Poetry Festival]] in 1975, establishing his reputation in England.{{r|obit|hobit}} He was one of five Gaelic poets to be anthologized in the influential 1976 collection ''Nua-Bhàrdachd Ghàidhlig / Modern Scottish Gaelic Poems'' with [[self-translation|verse translations by the authors]]. MacLean's verse translations were also included in later publications.{{r|thesis|pp=60, 64, 73}}

In 1977, [[Canongate Books]] published ''Reothairt is Contraigh: Taghadh de Dhàin 1932–72'' ({{langx|en|Spring tide and Neap tide: Selected Poems 1932–72}}). MacLean changed the ordering of the ''Dàin do Eimhir'' sequence, altering many poems and omitting others. In the original version of ''An Cuilthionn'', MacLean had asked the [[Red Army]] to invade Scotland.<ref name=library/>{{efn-lr|"Có bheir faochadh dhan àmhghar<br />mur tig an t-Arm Dearg sa chàs seo?"<br />(Who will give respite to the agony<br />unless the [[Red Army]] comes in this extremity?)<ref name=library/>}} This passage was expunged, among other alterations and omissions that led the Scottish Poetry Library to describe the 1977 version as having been "[[bowdlerized]]". MacLean said that he would only consent to publishing the parts of his older work that he found "tolerable".<ref name=library/> The critical acclaim and fame that MacLean achieved was almost entirely from critics who did not understand his poetry in the original Gaelic.{{r|thesis|p=172}} In 1989, a further compilation of his poetry, ''O Choille gu Bearradh / From Wood to Ridge: Collected Poems in Gaelic and English'' won him lasting critical acclaim. Complete annotated editions of his work have since been published.<ref name=library/>

[[File:Site of the 'Clearance' village of Hallaig - geograph.org.uk - 388590.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Hallaig, [[Raasay]], made famous by MacLean's 1954 [[Hallaig|poem]]]]

From the early 1970s, MacLean was in demand internationally as a reader of his own poetry. He would start a reading of a poem by describing the images, then read the poem first in Gaelic and again in English, emphasizing that the translations were not to be read as poems in themselves.{{r|thesis|p=72}} His readings were described as deeply moving even by listeners who did not speak Gaelic;{{r|open|p=17}} according to [[Seamus Heaney]], "MacLean's voice had a certain bardic weirdness that sounded both stricken and enraptured".<ref name=Heaney/> Gaelic poet George Campbell Hay wrote in a review that MacLean "is gifted with what the Welsh call [[:wikt:hwyl|Hwyl]], the power of elevated declamation, and his declamation is full of feeling."{{r|displacement|p=1}} These readings helped establish his international reputation as a poet.{{r|open|p=30}} MacLean's poetry was also translated into [[German language|German]], and he was invited to poetry readings in Germany and Austria.{{r|thesis|p=255}}

In the English-speaking world, MacLean's best-known poem is ''[[Hallaig]]'', a meditation on a Raasay village which had been cleared of its inhabitants.{{r|Easter|p=442}} Raasay was cleared between 1852 and 1854 under [[George Rainy]]; most of its inhabitants were forced to emigrate. Many of MacLean's relatives were affected, and Hallaig was one of the villages to be depopulated. The poem was written a century later, during MacLean's time in Edinburgh,<ref name="Edinburgh" />{{r|Hallaig|p=418}} and originally published in 1954 in the Gaelic-language magazine ''[[Gairm]]''.<ref name=publications/> Beginning with the famous line, "Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig",{{efn-lr|{{langx|gd|Tha tìm, am fiadh, an coille Hallaig}}}} the poem imagines the village as it was before the Clearances, with the long-dead eternally walking through the trees.{{r|Hallaig|pp=418–9}} It is also filled with local names of individuals and places, which have deeper meanings to those intimately familiar with Raasay oral tradition.{{r|open|p=36}} Unlike most of MacLean's output, ''Hallaig'' has no overt political references,{{r|Czech|p=128-129}} and never directly mentions eviction or clearance.<ref name="two" /> For this reason, it was seen as politically "safer" than others of MacLean's poems. Translated and promoted by Irish Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney,{{r|Easter|p=13}} ''Hallaig'' achieved "cult status"{{r|Czech|p=134}} and came to symbolize Scottish Gaelic poetry in the English-speaking imagination.{{r|Easter|p=13}}

===Style===

MacLean's poetry generally followed an older style of metre, based on the more dynamic patterns of the oral tradition rather than the strict, static metres of the written Gaelic poetry of the nineteenth century.{{r|MacInnes|p=397}} He frequently combined metrical patters and shifted in the middle of a poem, achieving "sensuous effects" that cannot be translated.{{r|MacInnes|p=398}} He typically used the traditional [[vowel rhyme]]s, both internal and end-rhymes, that are ubiquitous in the oral tradition, but a few of his poems have less traditional rhyme schemes.{{r|MacInnes|p=399}} However, he was flexible in his use of metre, "[combining] old and new in such a way that neither neutralizes each other,"{{efn-lr|Caimbeul writes, "ceòlmhor ann an dòigh a tha sean agus ùr",{{r|MC|p=7}} meaning, roughly, "musical in both old and new ways".}} extending rather than repudiating tradition, in a way that is unique in Gaelic poetry.{{r|MacInnes|p=400}}{{r|MC|p=7}} In MacInnes' analysis, "rhythmic patterns become a vital part of the meaning" of MacLean's poetry.{{r|MacInnes|p=414}} Over time, his poems became less strict in their application of rhyme and metre.{{r|MacInnes|p=401}} According to MacInnes, labels such as "[[classical poetry|classical]]" and "[[romantic poetry|romantic]]", which have been applied respectively to the form and content of MacLean's poetry, are misleading because MacLean did not limit himself by those styles. Despite MacLean's reliance on the oral tradition, his poetry was not intended to be sung.{{r|MacInnes|p=402}} Although he abandoned the "verbal codes" and intricate symbolism of the Gaelic tradition,{{r|MacInnes|p=416}} MacLean occasionally used outmoded devices, such as the repeating of adjectives.{{r|MC|p=6}}

[[File:Tide in at Killiechronan - geograph.org.uk - 877646.jpg|thumb|left|The sea is a recurring theme in Gaelic poetry]]

MacLean's poetry frequently used Gaelic themes and references, such as [[Scottish toponymy|place names]], trees, and sea symbolism. A knowledge of that tradition would bring additional interpretations and appreciation to a reading of MacLean's poetry.{{r|MacInnes|pp=407–8}} Another important symbol in his work is the face, which represents romantic love.{{r|Black|p=63}}

According to John MacInnes, MacLean's poetry "exhibits virtually an entire spectrum of language". Some of his poetry is transparent to a fluent Gaelic speaker, but the meaning of other poems needs to be untangled.{{r|MacInnes|p=393}} MacLean coined very few neologisms;{{r|family|p=216}}{{efn-lr|MacInnes said that he could not find a single neologism in all of MacLean's poetry.{{r|MacInnes|p=404}}}} however, he revived or repurposed many obscure or archaic words.{{r|MacInnes|pp=404–6}}{{r|MC|p=6}} MacLean often said that he had heard these old words in Presbyterian sermons.{{r|MacInnes|p=407}} According to MacInnes and [[Maoilios Caimbeul]], MacLean's revival of these old, forgotten Gaelic words revolutionized literary Gaelic, by adding senses and a newness and modernity.{{r|MacInnes|p=406}}{{r|MC|p=6}} Caimbeul wrote that MacLean's vocabulary is not "simple", but it is "natural" and arises naturally from everyday speech, although mixed with other influences.{{r|MC|p=5}}

In contrast, the English translations were all written in a very straightforward style,{{r|MacInnes|p=394}} flattening the language by the necessity to choose one English word for the ambiguity and connotations of the Gaelic one.{{r|MacInnes|pp=406–7}} According to [[Christopher Whyte]], the English translations produce "an official interpretation, one that restricts and deadens the range of possible readings of the poem".{{r|thesis|p=96}} English could not convey the pop that MacLean's revival of disused words brought to his Gaelic poetry.{{r|MacInnes|p=407}} While the Gaelic poems were noted for their acoustic properties, the translations did not pay any particular attention to sound, instead focusing narrowly on literal meaning.{{r|thesis|p=249}} MacLean emphasized that his "line-by-line translations" were not poetry;{{r|displacement|p=8}}{{r|thesis|p=257}} of the prose translation of ''An Cuilthionn'' that appeared in ''Dàin do Eimhir'', he wrote, "my English version has not even the merit of very strict literal accuracy as I find more and more when I look over it".{{r|thesis|p=257}} Seamus Heaney called the translations "[[wikt:crib sheet|cribs]]".{{r|Heaney}}