Hugh MacDiarmid, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

Kirsten Matthews (University of Glasgow); Alan Riach (University of Glasgow)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1926

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

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First published in 1926, Hugh MacDiarmid’s

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

was to continue a literary campaign that he had already begun with the publication of short lyrics in Scots, and with the profusion of propagandist articles, pamphlets and magazines he had produced in support of the “Scottish Literary Renaissance”.

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

made a renewed claim for the validity of Scots as a contemporary literary language, and thus for the definition of a place for Scotland and Scottish culture in the international artistic spectrum. Advertising the as yet unpublished (and uncompleted) poem in the

Glasgow Herald

in December 1925, MacDiarmid announced the creation of:

a long poem of over a thousand lines split up into several sections, but the forms within the sections

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3336 words

Citation: Matthews, Kirsten, Alan Riach. "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 July 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10057, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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