Makar noun. poet; a Scots word stressing the role of the poet or author as a skilled and versatile worker in the craft of writing.
Makars’ Court at The Writers’ Museum – a literary commemoration in stone, celebrates the lives and works of Scottish writers, The Scots word Makar stresses the role of the poet or author as a skilled and versatile worker in the craft of writing. Each of the writers is commemorated by a quotation inscribed in stone and set in the paving which leads from both the Mound and the Lawnmarket approaches to the door of The Writer’s Museum, where this exciting new tour begins and ends.
Makar or Poet?
The word ‘Makar’ has a whole different set of meanings than ‘Poet’. For a start it is free of all the Romantic associations we inherited from Wordsworth and Keats and Shelley and so on who endowed us, whether they intended to or not, with a legacy of the poet as a uniquely sensitive artist with a (typically tragic) sense of his own importance as an artist. From ‘poet’ we get ‘poetic’: beautiful and imaginative language – another legacy of the Romantics.
‘Makar’ is much more down-to-earth. Perhaps it is in the root of the word in ‘make’, a word which has always existed in one form or another throughout the entire history of the language. ‘Poet’ comes from the Greek where it means much the same as ‘Makar’ – creator, maker, composer. But we tend to regard words that are derived from Latin or Greek as being prettier, or more erudite, or of higher value in our culture than words which come from Anglo-Saxon roots.
‘Makar’ places the writer of verse more on a par with carpenters and blacksmiths, rather than the Muse. It implies that writing verse is a craft (another Saxon word) that can be learned like any other through apprenticeship and lots of practice, rather than some kind of divine gift that only an elite few can have. It implies hard work rather than inspiration. Not that Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley et al didn’t work hard to learn their craft, merely that the English word ‘poet’ has for us certain mystical associations that the Romantics helped to create. The closest word in English to ‘makar’ isn’t ‘poet’, but ‘wordsmith’ – a person who forges verse through the diligent application of skill.
Traditionally the three great Makars in Scottish literature are Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. Often when some modern critics and academics refer to the Makars they mean these guys. But the word ‘makar’ enjoyed a period of rehabilitation during the Scottish literary renaissance in the early 20th century when Hugh MacDiarmid, Robert Garioch, William Souter and others sought to reinvigorate the Scots language and poetic tradition. They too became known as makars.
For a while the word was used in a derogatory sense (a cartoon by Tom Leonard reads: “Makars’ Society: Gran’ meetin’ the nicht tae decide the spellin’ o’ this poster” Intimate Voices, 1984) and it is true that MacDiarmid et al unwittingly took Scottish literature down a bit of a cul-de-sac of pedantic squabbling over precise definitions of words, and what was authentically Scots and what wasn’t. Fortunately, the work of poets like Tom Leonard, Edwin Morgan, Carol-Anne Duffy, Liz Lochhead and countless others have taken Scottish poetry on a more outward-looking, international course in the late 20th century and into the 21st century.
Nowadays, we are not so caught up with ourselves and questions about national identity and cultural differentiation – devolution in 1999 has made us feel more secure about being Scottish. Now we are able to apply the word ‘makar’ confidently and unselfconsciously to the men and women throughout Scotland’s enormously rich literary history who took common, and uncommon, words and made them into works of great and lasting value.
John Barbour
John Barbour (c. 1320-95) : Poet, churchman and scholar. Probably born in Aberdeen, where he spent most his life and held the position of Archdeacon. He was granted passage to study at Oxford and Paris. Several poems have been attributed to Barbour, one of which, The Stewartis Originall, relates the fictitious pedigree of the Stewarts back to Banquo and his son Fleance.
His long patriotic poem The Brus, awarded a prize of 10 pounds by the king, is his most famous work. It supplies some facts of Robert the Bruce, many of which are told in anecdotal style and emphasises Bruce’s exploits in freeing Scotland from English rule.
Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson (c. 1425 – 1490) : lived in the second half of the 15th century and is said to have taught at the Grammar School connected to the Benedictine Abbey at Dunfermline. Though there is no record of Henryson obtaining a university degree, he was an educated man. In 1462 a “master Robert Henryson” was incorporated into Glasgow University as a bachelor in canon law; it seems possible that this was the poet, though it could also have been the notary of the same name who worked in Dunfermline in 1478. There is an allusion in William Dunbar’s The Lament for the Makars which tells us that Henryson must have died before 1505.
Even though several short poems have been attributed to Henryson, he is more of a narrative poet. His masterpiece, The Testament of Cresseid, was prompted by a reading of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, but it is an original piece in its own right.
His most important other work is a collection of thirteen fables, usually entitled The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian, party drawn from Aesop, partly from a medieval cycle. One famous example is the fable of “The Two Mice”. Henryson used the fables’ traditional didactic function for religious, political, and social commentary with wit and word play. Largely forgotten for centuries, Henryson’s work has been much appreciated again in the 20th century.
William Dunbar
William Dunbar (c. 1460 – 1520) : has left vivid images of Scotland during the reign of James IV, but much of his own life remains obscure. It is certain, however, that Dunbar was a Lowlander, from the Lothian region, and spent many years in Edinburgh. He was well- educated and studied at St Andrews, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1477, and a Master’s degree in 1479. It is assumed that he spent the subsequent years travelling abroad, possibly to Denmark, France, and England. Between 1500 and 1513, he received a ‘Pensioun’ or annual salary, from James IV as a member of the royal household and may have fulfilled clerical functions there. He was ordained in 1504, but occasionally acted as advocate in the law courts. The last mention of him in the court record is in May 1513, the year of the battle of Flodden, in which King James IV died. Dunbar may have survived into the reign of James V, but there is no evidence to back it up.
Much of his poetry is addressed to the king and queen and fellow courtiers, from humble fools to powerful officials, and there is some festive poetry, written for specific occasions, such as royal weddings (The Thissil and the Rose for the marriage of James IV and Margaret Tudor) and tournaments.
Much of his poetry, however, is satirical in its analyses of courtly life, and reveals an uneasy atmosphere of envy and distrust.
His verse is very brief and compressed, and he himself labelled his writings ‘ballatis’ and defined himself as a Makar, a term that lays stress on the poet as a skilled and versatile craftsman. Indeed, he experimented with many genres, elegy, panegyric, love epistle, fable, satire, and dream poetry. He is at his most personal in The Lament for the Makars. The last verse of that poem offers both the reader and himself a glimmer of hope, in what has become a prayer for his immortality. Through this poem, at least, he achieved it.
Sen for the ded remeid is none
Best is that we for ded dispone
Eftir our deid that lif may we
Timor mortis conturbat me
George Buchanan
George Buchanan (1506-82) : Scholar. Born in Stirlingshire. His father died when he was a child, and the mother Agnes brought up 8 children in much reduced circumstances. A very apt boy, he was sent to study at the University of Paris when he was 14. He stayed there until 1522, and in the spring 1525, his name appeared as a pauper student at the university of St Andrews. He went to Paris in 1526 to complete his education and taught there between 1528 and 1537. Then he was tutor to one of the sons of King James V, but due to a satire against Cardinal Beaton, his stay in Scotland wasn’t very long. Condemned as a heretic, he fled to England and then on to Bordeaux, and later Portugal to teach. The inquisition imprisoned him for his heretical beliefs and it was during this period that he translated the Psalms into Latin.
Set free in 1553, he lived in France and Italy and on returning in 1561 was appointed tutor to Mary Queen of Scots, whom he disliked after the murder of Darnley. He was appointed moderator of the Church of Scotland, and between 1570-1578 he was keeper of the Privy Seal and tutor to young James VI. He pamphleteered against the queen in Ane Detectioun of the Duings of Mary Quene, and held a prominent role in religious affairs until his death in Sept 1582.
He is buried in Greyfriars Churchyard and best remembered for both Latin and vernacular works, such as Ane Admonitioun Direct to the Trewe Lordis, or his history of Scotland, Rerum scoticarum historia.
Robert Ferguson
Robert Fergusson (1750 – 1774) : was born in Edinburgh on 5th September 1750, where he attended the High School before obtaining a bursary to Dundee Grammar School in 1762. this also took him to the University of St Andrews in 1765, but two years later, his father died and he had to return without a degree to support his family. He took a humble position as a clerk to the Commissary Office.
During his student days, Fergusson wrote his first poem, Elegy on the Death of Mr David Gregory, late Professor of Mathematics in the University of St Andrews. This mock elegy was written in Scots, at a time when most educated Scotsmen used English models in their writing. His poetry appeared in The Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement and in his vivid social life he was also a member of the Cape Club, which embraced a wide range of professions and social classes in its celebration of poetry and song.
His first magazine contributions were in English, but he soon showed his genius for Scots poetry, developing a flexible use of the language and a unique combination of the vernacular and the classical. He is best remembered for his long poem on Edinburgh, Auld Reikie.
Fergusson’s language shows a range and assurance not seen in Scots since the Makars. He died young in 1774, but managed to establish Scots poetry and make the poetry of Burns possible.
Robert Burns
Robert Burns (1759-96) : Born 25 Jan 59 in Alloway, Ayrshire. At Alloway Mill School, he was influenced by literature, while his father instilled religious belief, and his mother made him familiar with folk tradition at an early age. His education suffered some interruptions caused by moving house. In 1781 Burns became a freemason and after his father’s death in 1784. He and his brother rented Mossgiel, a farm near Mauchline. Burns’ relationship with Jean Armour, who bore him four children before he married her, nearly forced him to emigrate. Of course his marriage did not stop him from having affairs with other women, such as “Highland Mary” Campbell.
He started writing in 1783, and some of his greatest satirical poems date from that early phase. In 1786, his first collection, Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect appeared. An immediate success, it got him the epithet of the “heaven-taught ploughman”. That same year, he came to Edinburgh, where he was greatly admired and embarked on affair with Agnes McElhose.
In 1788, he returned to his family and farm life, and worked as an excise officer from 1789 until his death from rheumatic fever in 1796. His birthday is, to this day, celebrated all over the world. Burns’ work covers a wide range of topics, from idylls, biting satire, Jacobitism, love and passion, to carousing, friendship and nationalism. Of course, he had a sure ear for music and his songs are among the most popular works, as is his long narrative poem Tam O’Shanter.
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott (1771 – 1832) : Born in 1771 in Edinburgh. At the age of 1 year, Scott suffered from polio and lost the use of his right leg. In order to recuperate, his parents sent him to Sandyknowe, his grandfather’s sheep farm in the Borders, where he had an early exposure to Border lore and legend, and began a fascination with the Jacobite cause.
After moving between the Borders, Edinburgh and Bath to improve his health, Scott finally returned to Edinburgh in 1778, where he was educated privately for admission to the High School of Edinburgh, which he entered the following year. At the age of 12, he matriculated at Edinburgh University, and entered his father’s legal practice at 15.
A talented and energetic person, Scott became a lawyer, and pursued this profession all his adult life, in spite of his numerous social commitments and prolific writing. He made his first literary appearance with The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, a collection of ballads, but his first success as an author was in poetry with The Lay of the Last Minstrel, and most outstandingly, The Lady of the Lake, a bestseller. Scott promoted an image of a wild, bloody, romantic, mysterious Scotland, which is still a recognised stereotype of the country today. Abandoning poetry, he took to novel writing, and with his sequence of The Waverley Novels (Waverley, Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian and others), he gained worldwide acclaim.
Scott produced a new novel every year, and his appetite for money led him to a misinvestment. His subsequent bancruptcy Scott faced with dignity and an ever increasing literary output. For six years, he wrote to clear his debts, at a terrible price to his health. He suffered a series of strokes, and died in 1832.
Scott is best remembered for his fiction, but he produced a great amount of poetry, biography, translations, and critical prose as well. He had a huge influence on the Romantic movement worldwide, and it was not just literature, but also painting and opera appropriating his characters, scenes and ideas about Scotland.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894): Born in 1850, he grew up in Edinburgh, and the city had a great impact on his writing. From early childhood, he suffered from various ailments, and the fragility of his state is often seen as a reason for his fertile imagination. His father was an engineer, and it was assumed that Robert would follow in his footsteps. He studied law at Edinburgh University, but it was soon clear that his ambitions lay in literature.
Stevenson started writing fiction when still a teenager, but his first publication was the 1878 travel account An Inland Voyage, followed by Edinburgh, Picturesque Notes in 1879. Today, Stevenson is famous mainly for his adventure stories, such as Treasure Island, or Kidnapped, as well as his narrative The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, an attack on the hypocrisy of Victorian values, and a best seller both in Europe and America. Stevenson’s unconventional lifestyle, and his marriage to American divorcee Fanny Osbourne, caused tensions within his family. Due to his bad health, he spent much time away from home in France, Switzerland, and the South of England, but even from a distance, he explored the dualism of the Scottish psyche in his short fiction. On his father’s death in 1887, he went to America, and continued to go West to the South Pacific, where he finally found a climate suited to his condition, and settled down in Samoa. He never returned, and besides Scottish issues, turned to new themes in his fiction, incorporating native traditions, and supporting the case of anticolonialism.
His exile inspired some of his best work about Scotland and the Scots language, such as Catriona, or Weir of Hermiston, which he worked on until his death, and which remained unfinished.
Stevenson’s oeuvre also includes eight volumes of letters, haunting short stories, The Child’s Garden of Verses and other poetry. He died in Samoa in 1894.
Violet Jacob
Violet Jacob (1863 – 1946) : Violet Kennedy-Erskine, born in 1863 at the House of Dun, near Montrose. Her ancestral home appeared in some of her work, such as the novel Flemington, and The Lairds of Dun. In 1894 she married Arthur Jacob, an Irishman in the British Army, and they went to India with his regiment. They later travelled to Egypt, and settled down in various parts of England. Jacob lost her only son, Harry, in the First World War, and after her husband’s death in 1937, she returned to Angus, where she died in 1946, having received an honorary degree from Edinburgh University the year before.
Jacob’s literary début, The Sheepstealers, (1902) was well received, as was her next work, The Interlopers, (1904) with its remarkable Scots dialogue. She also wrote children’s books and romances, but is best known for Flemington, (1911) which deals with the Jacobite Rising of 1745 – a recurring theme in Scottish literature, which has featured in the oeuvre of Scott, Stevenson, and the like.
Jacob was also a gifted short story writer and renowned for her Scots vernacular poetry, which appeared in several volumes, and was published in anthologies by Hugh MacDiarmid and John Buchan. Recent critics appreciate the richness of her poetry, which draws on folk song and ballad traditions, and offers serious, radical as well as sentimental elements.
Helen B Cruickshank
Helen Cruickshank (1886 – 1975) : born in 1886, near Montrose, where she went to school. Summer holidays were spent in Angus, and the landscapes and people of the region and its glens appear in her poetry. After leaving school, she entered the Civil Service, working first in London, and then, from 1912, in Edinburgh where she spent most her life. She joined the women’s social and political union, and campaigned for the suffragette cause. She was also a Scottish nationalist, member of the Saltire Society, and co-founder of Scottish Pen. Helen Cruickshank devoted much of her life to other people, helping and supporting them in various ways. Not only did she care for her elderly mother, she also encouraged the work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Hugh MacDiarmid and other writers, and appreciated the work of Violet Jacob and marion Angus. She wrote in English and Scots and published several volumes of poetry between the 1930s and 70s. she died in 1975, but the significance of Cruikshank’s generous contribution to Scottish cultural life still awaits full estimation.
Hugh MacDiarmid
Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 – 1978) : born Christopher Murray Grieve in 1892 in Dumfriesshire. He grew up in a fiercely independent community, and this atmosphere may have encouraged his future radicalism. After his studies at Langholm Academy, he was a teacher, and his literary talent was supported by George Ogilvie, who remained a friend and advisor for many years. When his father died in 1911, he turned to journalism and some years later, after army service, found himself editor-reporter for the Montrose Review, and his activities in the community got him the offices of Town Councillor and Justice of the Peace.
It was from there that he published Northern Numbers, collections of contemporary Scottish poetry, as well as a series of periodicals. In The Scottish Chapbook, Grieve demonstrated his belief in a Scottish Literary Renaissance, according to the motto of “Not Traditions – Precedents”.
Publishing some of his own work in the Chapbook, he introduced the pen name MacDiarmid. His most admired work is A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926), where exquisite lyrics are integrated into the erratic progression and glorious illogicality of the drunk man’s thought.
While publishing his poetry under MacDiarmid and other pen names, Grieve was contributing to the Scottish Educational Journal, redefining the literary scene in Scotland, attacking all the revered members along the way.
Grieve was a believer in communism, and his 1931 First Hymn to Lenin influenced the likes of Auden, Spender and Day Lewis. He admired the Irish literati such as Joyce and Yeats, whose writing is echoed in some of his works like Mature Art, Water Music or The Little White Rose. Grieve lived on the Shetland island of Whalsay with his second wife, Valda Trevlyn, for nine years, and in spite of poverty and remoteness, he produced Scottish Scene, At the Sign of The Thistle, and Stony Limits. MacDiarmid’s poems in Scots cover a wide range of styles, from the deceptively simple and humorous, to the hauntingly beautiful and austere. Of course, his political views as a member of the Communist and Nationalist parties were expressed frequently in protest and propaganda along with linguistic experimentation. Though MacDiarmid may not be an easy poet, he can also write simply and directly, just as the man who was a feared adversary, was also the most generous of friends. In 1955, the Grieves moved to Biggar, where the poet lived until his death in 1978. Although many disagreed with his political stances, MacDiarmid is recognised as the major Scottish literary figure of the 20th century, whose work ranks with that of Dunbar and Burns, and a writer and thinker of international standing.
Nan Shepherd
Nan Shepherd (1893 – 1981) : Anna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893. She grew up in Aberdeenshire, was educated at Aberdeen High School for Girls, and the University of Aberdeen, and spent most of her life there. After her graduation in 1915, she lectured English literature at Aberdeen College until 1956, when she retired.
Shepherd’s work has contributed strongly to the Modernist fiction of Scotland. Her novels, The Quarry Wood and The Weatherhouse are insightful narratives about female self realisation – appearing well before Grassic Gibbon’s famous Sunset Song – dealing with the very real pressures on those who are forced to care for others, or whose love remains unrequited. Shepherd, similar to Willa Muir and Anna Buchan, hints at options of emotional fulfilment outside heterosexual union.
She also wrote the novel A Pass in the Grampians, a volume of poetry called In the Cairngorms, as well as a ‘prose meditation’ on the Cairgorms, The Living Mountain.
Shepherd edited the Aberdeen University Review after her retirement, and gave great encouragement and support to other writers. In 1964, she was given an honorary degree from Aberdeen University, and she died in 1981.
Naomi Mitchison
Naomi Mitchison (1897 – 1999) : Naomi Mitchison (1897 – 1999) : née Haldane, born 1897 in Edinburgh and educated in Oxford. A prolific author, with about 100 published books and 100s of pieces of short fiction and essays, Mitchison interrupted her university career at an early age when she married the barrister and Labour politician G Richard Mitchison in 1916, and from 1937 lived in Carradale, Kintyre, keenly involved in local politics. Her interest in travel led her to Botswana, where she was adopted as advisor and ‘mother’ of the Bakgatla tribe during the 1960s.
Mitchison’s books, include mythical themes (The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931), science fiction (Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962)), novels for children, biographies, and collections of short stories and poetry. Her 1947 novel The Bull Calves is set in Perthshire in the years after the Jacobite rebellion. The story around her fictional ancestor Kirstie Haldane is fictional, but the background and events are real enough, painting a lively picture of life in 18th century rural Scotland. She died in January 1999.
Robert Garioch
Robert Garioch (1909 – 1981) : Robert Garioch (1909 – 1981) : alias of Robert Garioch Sutherland, was born in Edinburgh in 1909 and educated at the local Royal High School and University. During the Second World War, he served in North Africa and was a prisoner-of-war in Germany and Italy. Later, he taught in schools in Edinburgh, London and Kent and retired in 1964. He returned to Edinburgh where he was Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University, and a “lexicographers’ orraman” at the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue.
He was deeply rooted in the Scots tradition, and lamented the decline of the use of Scots “in the ordinary way of life”.
He uses both a pungent language dismissing the pompous and pretentious, as well as the aureate style of the 15th century Makars. Among his best-known works are the poems dealing with his native Edinburgh, such as In Princes Street Gairdens. He emphasised his admiration for and indebtedness to Robert Fergusson in his poems To Robert Fergusson and At Robert Fergusson’s Grave.
He produced various translations from the French, Greek and Latin, and published one autobiography, Two Men and a Blanket, about his experiences as a prisoner-of-war. His main work was, however, poetry, which he initially published jointly with Sorley MacLean. He died in 1981.
Sorley Maclean
Sorley MacLean (1911 – 1996) : Sorley MacLean (his Gaelic name is Somhairle MacGill-Eain) was born on the island of Raasay, near Skye, in 1911. He was brought up speaking Gaelic and only began to learn English when he started school at the age of six. His family was well-versed in Gaelic song and music: his father and his uncle were pipers and his grandmother and an aunt were Gaelic singers.
MacLean went on to study at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a first in English, then took up teaching as a career. He worked in Skye, Mull and Edinburgh and eventually became head teacher at Plockton High School, retiring in 1972. He served with Signals in the Second World War, returning seriously wounded from El Alamein.
While at university he began writing poetry, at first in English, but when he translated one of his poems into Gaelic he immediately felt his poetic voice to be stronger and truer in his first language. He would continue to write in Gaelic for the rest of his life, translating much of his work himself into English. His poetry is distinguished for its inventiveness and its scope and breadth. MacLean represents a break with Gaelic tradition, bringing in many modern elements. He showed that the Gaelic language, although one of the oldest in Europe and inextricably associated with an ancient way of life which was steadily passing into oblivion, was as flexible and as subtle as any modern language and its poetry was as capable of dealing with complex and contemporary issues. His work reflects a profound passion for his culture and his people, his language and his literary heritage. His themes range from a raging sense of injustice at human greed and cruelty, to soaring expressions of love; from the devastation of the Clearances, to the horrors of modern warfare.
He was never a prolific poet – his teaching duties hobbled his creative output – and he was never a professional ‘career’ poet. He wrote as it suited him, as the rhythms came to him, not for glory or fame or material reward. Even though he was widely published – in fact his first poems were published in conjunction with Robert Garioch – his audience was mainly confined to the Gaelic speaking community. MacLean also benefitted from the sturdy advocacy of Douglas Young, who sought a broader audience for the work of his friend by translating his poems into Scots. Widespread recognition was slow in coming but by the 1970s he was firmly established as one of Scotland’s leading poets, due partly to an appearance at the Cambridge Poetry Festival where his distinctive and sonorous reading voice alerted an influential new audience to his verse.
Sorley MacLean has earned a place as one of Scotland’s most important poets – he is responsible for bringing Gaelic literature into the twentieth century and breathing new life into a language that had long been on the verge of extinction, and was considered more or less irrelevant in the history of Scotland’s literature. MacLean encouraged the Scottish literary establishment to reappraise this erroneous view. Consequently, the positive influence MacLean has had on the resurgence of Gaelic in recent years can justly be described as incalculable.
Ian Crichton Smith
Iain Crichton Smith (1928 – 1988): (His gaelic name was Iain Mac a ‘Ghobhainn’) was born in Glasgow in 1928, Smith grew up from the age of two on the island of Lewis. The language of his upbringing was Gaelic; he learned English as his second language when he went to school at the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway. Later, he took a degree in English at the University of Aberdeen.
From there he became a school teacher in Clydebank then Oban, where he could contemplate his island upbringing at close range, but with a necessary degree of detachment. He retired early from teaching in 1977 to concentrate on his writing.
Smith won various literary awards and was made an OBE in 1980. He published work in Gaelic under the name Iain Mac a’Ghobhainn, and did translations of Gaelic work into English, much of it his own, as well as Sorley MacLean’s poetry. Smith’s work in Gaelic is generally considered to best reveal his mastery; a good example is his collection of Gaelic poems and short stories, Bùrn is Aran (1960), or his novel An t-Aonaran (1976).
His recurring themes of loss, exile and isolation are also present in his English work. He wrote several novels, the most celebrated of which is Consider the Lilies (1968), a short novel completed in ten days which tells the story of an old woman being evicted from her home during the Highland Clearances. His other novels include A Field Full of Folk (1982), In the Middle of the Wood (1987) and An Honourable Death (1992).
Iain Crichton Smith died in 1998. He famously, and posthumously, played a significant part in the opening ceremony of the new Scottish Parliament on 1st July 1999 when his poem The Beginning of a New Song was recited as part of the proceedings. The poem called for a renewed Scotland to be “Inventive, original, philosophical” – a fitting description for the man himself.
New Stones
Literature is not a thing of the past.
Makars’ Court is an evolving national literary monument featuring commemorative flagstones of the major writers in Scotland’s rich literary history. The evolutionary nature of Makars’ Court makes it impossible for a comprehensive and final list of Scottish Makars’ ever to be complete. As Scotland’s cultural landscape changes, so does the literature that speaks of it; as Scotland’s literature continues to grow and develop, so too will Makars’ Court.
New stones are added every year. Since its inauguration in 1999 with 12 original stones, the monument has grown to commemorate over 20 writers from all periods of Scottish literature from John Barbour (1320 – 1395) to Naomi Mitchison (1897 – 1999).
Since the Makars’ Court Literary Tour was devised, six more writers have entered this literary hall of fame: in 2002 Makars’ Court commemorated the novelists John Galt, Neil Gunn, and Neil Munro. In October 2003, three new stones were laid to pay tribute to the life and work of three of the 20th century’s most distinguished poets: Tom Scott, Sydney Goodsir Smith, and Douglas Young.