Happy! - Aug 11 (Hugh MacDiarmid)

Subject: RE: Happy! - Aug 11 (Hugh MacDiarmid)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 01:10 PM

Hugh MacDiarmid wrote the sleeve notes to my LP 'Scottish Republican Songs', 1966, sung by Nigel Denver. He was no debunker of modern folksong but was dead against the 'corn kisters', maudlin parochial ballads.
He was a very complex man but brilliant company with a tremendous eclectic knowledge.

Subject: Happy! - Aug 11 (Hugh MacDiarmid)
From: Abby Sale
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 10:22 AM


Happy Birthday!

Preeminent Scottish poet and leader of the Scottish literary renaissance

Hugh MacDiarmid

born

8/11/1892
(d 9/9/1978)

          Come, follow me into the realm of music.
          Here is the gate which separates the earthly from the eternal.
  
                          From "Plaited Like the Generations of Men," Hugh MacDiarmid. 

In addition, MacDiarmid says some extremely uncomplimentary things about folk-song & folk-singers. He implored Ewan MacColl to return to the theater since MacColl was, in his opinion, wasting his talent on what was essentially trivial material.

In his book, Alias MacAlias, (required reading) Great Hamish writes:
"Owing to the constant fruitful interaction of folk-song and art literature in our tradition." It is often impossible to know "where MacAlias ends and Anon begins....A sort of friendly communal cannibalisation has therefore been the rule rather than the exception in Scottish literature." Art & folk poets have stolen from each other and both from Anon. There are also poets that that write original works and palm them off as by Anon."

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