What do you think?
Rate this book
MacDiarmid
In this first critical biography of Hugh MacDiarmid, Alan Bold explores the life and work of a great poet. During his long life (1892 - 1978), MacDiarmid revitalized the Scots language and in A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle produced one of the masterpieces of world poetry. He also wrote delicate lyrics in Scots, powerful political poems in English, and worked on an epic sequence, Cornish Heroic Song for Valda Trevlyn.
MacDiarmid served in Salonika during the First World War and worked in a Glasgow factory in the Second World War. He cofounded the National party of Scotland, which subsequently expelled him for his communism; but then the Communist Party also found him a difficult man to contain and likewise expelled him on two occasions. He stood several times for Parliament as a Scottish Nationalist and as a Communist. Drawing on unpublished and uncollected material as well as on MacDiarmid's published work, Bold shows us a gifted, protean man full of complexities and contradictions. MacDiarmid was at once convivial and argumentative, kind-hearted and aggressive, flexible and tenacious, erudite and pugnacious. Fascinated but not blinded by MacDiarmid's exceptional literary gifts and forceful character, Bold has written a penetrating and balanced study of a man who, in the face of great odds, carved for himself a unique place in twentieth-century literature.
MacDiarmid served in Salonika during the First World War and worked in a Glasgow factory in the Second World War. He cofounded the National party of Scotland, which subsequently expelled him for his communism; but then the Communist Party also found him a difficult man to contain and likewise expelled him on two occasions. He stood several times for Parliament as a Scottish Nationalist and as a Communist. Drawing on unpublished and uncollected material as well as on MacDiarmid's published work, Bold shows us a gifted, protean man full of complexities and contradictions. MacDiarmid was at once convivial and argumentative, kind-hearted and aggressive, flexible and tenacious, erudite and pugnacious. Fascinated but not blinded by MacDiarmid's exceptional literary gifts and forceful character, Bold has written a penetrating and balanced study of a man who, in the face of great odds, carved for himself a unique place in twentieth-century literature.
560 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1988
3 people want to read
About the author
Alan Bold
95 books1 followerAlan Norman Bold was a Scottish poet, biographer, and journalist. He was educated at Broughton High School and the University of Edinburgh.
He edited Hugh MacDiarmid's Letters and wrote the influential biography MacDiarmid. Bold had acquainted himself with MacDiarmid in 1963 while still an English Literature student at Edinburgh University. His debut work, Society Inebrious, with a lengthy introduction by MacDiarmid, was published in 1965, during Bold's final university year. This early publication kick-started a prolific poetic career with Bold publishing another three books of verse before the end of the decade, including the ambitious book-length poem The State of the Nation. He also edited The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse (1970) and published a 1973 biography of Robert Burns.
A lifelong heavy drinker who dealt with the boozy life of the poet in such collections as A Pint of Bitter, Bold suffered a heart attack in early 1998 and died in a hospital in Kirkcaldy at the age of 54.
He edited Hugh MacDiarmid's Letters and wrote the influential biography MacDiarmid. Bold had acquainted himself with MacDiarmid in 1963 while still an English Literature student at Edinburgh University. His debut work, Society Inebrious, with a lengthy introduction by MacDiarmid, was published in 1965, during Bold's final university year. This early publication kick-started a prolific poetic career with Bold publishing another three books of verse before the end of the decade, including the ambitious book-length poem The State of the Nation. He also edited The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse (1970) and published a 1973 biography of Robert Burns.
A lifelong heavy drinker who dealt with the boozy life of the poet in such collections as A Pint of Bitter, Bold suffered a heart attack in early 1998 and died in a hospital in Kirkcaldy at the age of 54.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 18, 2009
Imagine - he fell from the top of a double decker bus onto his HEAD and didn't even fracture his skull. So that incredible head of hair you see in the photos must have been like a mattress. I am finding this book quite heavy going actually, worthy and informative as it is, but I love the bit about the headlong descent from the bus.
Displaying 1 of 1 review