Book description
Sorley MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain 1911Â-1996) is generally
recognised as the most significant writer in Scottish Gaelic of the
twentieth century. Yet his work possesses a relevance extending far
beyond the bounds of his nation or his language. His 1943 collection
DÃ in do Eimhir (Poems to Eimhir) brought Gaelic poetry abreast of the
modern world with breathtaking and notorious effectiveness. The love
sequence at its core shows a young man battling with the conflicting
claims of love and duty against the background of a continent hurtling
unstoppably into all-out war. His political poem An Cuilithionn (The
Cuillin) links the tragedy of the Highland Clearances with a tradition
of left-wing radicalism which had the French and Bolshevik revolutions
as its highpoints. His work was characterised by a mixture of
reticence and outspokenness. The love sequence could not be published
in its entirety while he was alive, and An Cuilithionn waited half a
century before finally appearing in an abridged and shortened form.
This definitive edition brings together everything published during
the poet's life time and the love sequence in its fullest form, along
with extracts from the 1939 manuscript of An Cuilithionn and a
generous selection of unpublished poems. MacLean's own English
versions are complemented, where necessary, by versions from the
editors. A section of notes highlights historical and traditional
references, and two maps and a glossary of place-names are provided.
Sorley MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain) was born on the island of
Raasay in 1911. In his family Gaelic traditions, especially of song,
survived. He took a first-class degree in English at Edinburgh. He
served in North Africa in World War II and was wounded three times. He
was instrumental in preserving the teaching of Gaelic in Scottish
schools. He died in 1996. Christopher Whyte is probably the greatest
living expert on MacLean's poetry. His annotated editions of the Dain do
Eimhir and An Cuilithionn 1939 contained a significant quantity of
hitherto unpublished material and have been met with acclaim. He is
himself a Gaelic poet of substance whose fifth collection, An Daolag
Shionach, is due to appear in 2012. Author of four novels in English, he
taught from 1990 to 2005 at the Department of Scottish Literature in
Glasgow University. He now lives and writes full-time in Budapest. Emma
Dymock gained a First Class Honours in Celtic at the University of
Edinburgh in 2003, and has since completed an MSc on symbolism in
twentieth-century Gaelic poetry and a PhD on themes of politics and
concepts of the self in Sorley MacLean's An Cuilithionn. She is
currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Celtic and
Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh and has written various
articles and chapters on the subject of Sorley MacLean's poetry, as well
as co-editing two books on Scottish and Gaelic literature.
