Alexander Scott is a highly individual voice among the remarkable group of Scots-writing poets of the mid-twentieth century, noted for a characteristic vein of fiercely humorous satire and an unsurpassed technical virtuosity in manipulating the sounds and rhythms of Scots.
The city of Scott’s birth and upbringing exerted a fundamental influence on his poetic development: Aberdeen, known as the Granite City, is the centre of a region of Scotland where a strongly differentiated local dialect is still in general use and proudly maintained as a mark of regional identity. Scott’s favoured poetic medium is not the local dialect pur sang (as with many North-Eastern writers); but one of the distinctive features of …
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