Hugh MacDiarmid

Hugh MacDiarmid, pseudonym of Christopher Murray Grieve (1892-1978), Scottish poet, editor, and critic. MacDiarmid was one of the leading—and most controversial—figures in the Scottish literary renaissance of the 1920s and '30s (see Scottish Literature). A political radical, he devoted numerous essays to the cause of Scottish culture and nationalism and was active as an editor of contemporary Scottish poetry. A proponent of the use of synthetic literary Scots (Lallans), he wrote most of his own verse in this language. Sangschaw (1925) and Penny Wheep (1926) are collections of his early shorter lyrics. A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926; 4th ed., 1962) was a precursor of the complex intellectual poetry of his maturity. A collected edition of his verse was issued in 1962. Lucky Poet: A Self-Study in Literature and Political Ideas (1943) is his autobiography.