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01 Nov 21 - 02:55 AM (#4124827) Subject: William Sharp a/k/a 'Fiona Macleod' From: keberoxu No Mudcat thread for this author? there is one now. During the 1900's (Sharp died in 1905 at the age of fifty years), Sharp's literary work sort of went underground. To authors like Neil Munro Gunn he remained significant, but he was forgotten by many others. Today there are numerous studies and books about him and editions of his work. One of the more recent publications is of all of his letters. In his short life he published a lot of writing. The trick is that the work was published under two names: his own, and that of 'Fiona Macleod.' Sharp and his loved ones (sister as well as wife) went to great trouble to keep the public from guessing that 'Fiona' was himself; but he provided that after his death, the deception should end. The (United States) Library of Congress contains 61 catalogue records under William Sharp's name, and 42 catalogue records under Fiona Macleod's name, according to Wikipedia; what I do not know, is if any of these duplicate each other. How did Sharp, born and raised in Paisley, learn the Scottish Gaelic? In The Little Book of the Great Enchantment, biographer Steve Blamires writes: [...]his constant companion was his old Highland nurse Barbara. She taught him the Gaelic of the Isles and told him the old stories of Celtic and Viking heroes and warriors and filled his young mind with the Gaelic folklore, charms, and sayings that later so influenced the writing of Fiona Macleod. We know nothing about this influential character from his early days or even why a Gaelic speaking Highlander should end up as nurse for a Lowland family in Paisley. It is probable that Barbara's family had been cleared from its native Highland home and she, like so many others, had found her way down to the cities of the Central Lowlands in search of employment. [page 25] Both English and the Scottish Gaelic feature in Sharp's fiction, as in the first Fiona Macleod novel, Pharais. The novel presents verse in Scottish Gaelic framed by English prose, and the verses are presented as utterances by the fictional characters, largely Islanders. Each piece of Scottish Gaelic verse includes a prose English translation, embedded in the story. To keep this OP from getting overly long, I conclude with the observation that William Butler Yeats encountered Sharp early on, and there was tremendous ambivalence and tension between the two, as their relationship was stormy and contentious. Yeats guessed that 'Fiona Macleod', whose publications he read, was William Sharp, even before Sharp died; and Yeats was, shall we say, indignant about the deception. |
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02 Nov 21 - 08:25 PM (#4125019) Subject: RE: William Sharp a/k/a 'Fiona Macleod' From: keberoxu Steve Blamires, biographer of William Sharp, has stated that there exists published negative criticism of 'Fiona Macleod" 's command of Scottish Gaelic, that contemporary writers complained that the Gaelic was 'poor'. As I am the last person who can judge, it occurred to me to submit to this thread some examples of the Gaelic verse embedded in the Sharp/Macleod fiction canon, along with the English translations attached to each by their author. Then comments or criticism from Mudcatters -- or GUESTs -- would be welcome. Here is an example. Tha 'n la nis air falbh ùainn, Tha 'n oidhche 'tighinn orm dlùth; 'S ni mise luidhe gu dion Fo dhubhar sgiath mo rùin. O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs, 'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe, O nàdur dhaoine borba, 'S o choirbteachd mo nàduir fèin, Gabhaidh mis' a nis armachd Dhe, Gun bhi reubta no brisd', 'Sge b' oil leis an t' sàtan 's le phàirt Bi 'dh mis' air mo gheàrd a nis. The day is now gone; Dark night gathers around, And I will lay me safely down [to sleep] Under the shadow of my Beloved One's wing. Against all dangers, and death in every form, Against each enemy of God's good Son, Against the anger of the turbulent people, And against the corruption of my own nature, I will take unto me the armour of God -- That shall protect me from all assaults: And in spite of Satan and all his following, I shall be well and surely guarded. -- pages 71 - 72, chapter III of Pharais. A Romance of the Isles, by Fiona Macleod, Derby: Harpur & Murray, 1894. And, while the topic is the Scottish Gaelic, here let me include the footnote in which the Author justifies his spelling of the word in the title. A slightly anglicised lection of the Gaelic word Pàras = Paradise, Heaven. "Pharais," properly, is the genitive and dative case of Pàras, as in the line from Muireadhach Albannach, quoted after the title page, "Mithich domh triall gu tigh Pharais" -- "It is time for me to go up unto the House of Paradise." -- page x, preface of the preceding book |
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04 Nov 21 - 08:51 PM (#4125200) Subject: RE: William Sharp a/k/a 'Fiona Macleod' From: keberoxu A little more digging, and success in uncovering the source from which William Sharp / Fiona Macleod 's book Pharais quoted the rune in the post before this one. In fact, Sharp / Macleod cheerfully copied the prayer, both in the original Gaelic and its English translation, from a different presentation. And as the bibliography shows, it predates Pharais. Exactly as printed in the 1894 edition of Sharp / Macleod, these first appeared in Chapter 29, under the sub-heading, "How an old Woman supposed to possess the Evil Eye escaped a cruel death", page 176, in Nether Lochaber: the Natural History, Legends, and Folklore of the West Highlands, by the Rev. Alexander Stewart, F.S.A. Scot., Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1883. |