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The first half of the Twentieth Century witnessed two catastrophic
global conflicts, with suffering on a scale that - thankfully -
later generations find hard to comprehend. The full story of what
it was like to endure these wars might never be told, because many
who survived chose not to speak - or could not speak - of what they
saw and suffered. But some could turn to poetry, to try to make
sense of what was happening. From the Line brings together the best
of Scotland's poetry from the two World Wars: 138 poems, from
fifty-six poets, are represented here, from both men and women,
from battlefields across the world and from the Home Front, too.
There is dread in these lines as poets reflect on the loss of
peace, or mourn the death of friends and comrades. Some tell of
traumas that can never be shaken off, others of an intensity that
would never be found again - but there is hope, too, and moments of
humour, compassion and decency that survived the worst.
'Two Men at Once' is one of Norman MacCaig best known poems. He was
indeed two men at once: Edinburgh, the city where he was born and
lived as a teacher and poet, was his home, but no other place
shaped his poetry more than Assynt in Sutherland. It is here that
he would spend many a summer on family holidays, walking the hills
and fishing the lochs. MacCaig’s fresh eye saw remarkable newness
even in the everyday and each poem is a tiny revelation, a new look
at an old friend. This collection celebrates, renews, and
rediscovers Norman MacCaig’s Assynt.
Edwin Morgan is one of Scotland's most distinguished and popular
poets. His celebration of his native city brought him the honour of
Glasgow Poet Laureate, and in 2004 the Scottish Executive
recognised him officially, as Scotland's first modern national
poet, with the title of Scots Makar. Each poem here is read by
Edwin Morgan, followed by informed and accessible commentary by
Professor Roderick Watson of the University of Stirling. This CD is
an excellent tool for classroom study, as well as giving listeners
a chance to hear some of Scotland's best-loved poems read by the
author himself.
First published in 2010 to mark the centenary of Norman MacCaig's
birth, The Many Days aims to strike a balance between representing
the much-loved poems that any reader would expect to find in a
selected MacCaig, and other less familiar verses. The collection is
arranged to show the range of the poet's work in all its variety,
from his love of nature and the landscape of the North West
Highlands to his life in Edinburgh; from his care for animals and
human friendship, to his moments of joy and grief, creative delight
and occasional creative dread. Time and again MacCaig returns us to
that good place we know as the world, but hardly ever seen so
clearly as we do in these marvellous poems.
The SCOTNOTES booklets are a series of study guides to major
Scottish writers and texts frequently used within literature
courses, aimed at senior secondary school pupils and students in
further education. The individual authors are not only experts on a
particular writer or text but also experienced in teaching in
schools or colleges. This SCOTNOTE Study Guide explores the
responses of Scottish poets to the First and Second World Wars,
from the sometimes jingoistic optimism of the early days of 1914,
to the horrors of the trenches, to the massed and mechanised
brutalities of total war - not forgetting, too, the experiences on
the Home Front and the traumas of memory.
The Quarry Wood, although published well before Sunset Song,
inhabits a similar world; the progress of its heroine could almost
be the alternative story of a Chris Guthrie who did go to
university. Compassionate and humorous, the grace and style of
Shepherd's prose is heightened by a superb ear for the vigorous
language of the north-east. The Weatherhouse, Shepherd's
masterpiece, is an even more substantial achievement which belongs
to the great line of Scottish fiction dealing with the complex
interactions of small communities, and especially the community of
women - a touching and hilarious network of mothers, daughters,
spinsters and widows. It is also a striking meditation on the
nature of truth, the power of human longing and the mystery of
being. The third and final novel, A Pass in the Grampians,
describes Jenny Kilgour's coming of age as she has to choose
between the kindly harshness of her grandfather's life on a remote
hill farm, and the vulgar and glorious energy of Bella Cassie, a
local girl who left the community to pursue success as a singer,
and has now returned to scandalise them all. The Living Mountain is
a lyrical testament in praise of the Cairngorms. It is a work
deeply rooted in Shepherd's knowledge of the natural world, and a
poetic and philosophical meditation on our longing for high and
holy places. This omnibus edition of Shepherd's prose works reveals
how her sensitivity and powers of observation raise her work far
above the status of regional literature and into the front rank of
Scottish writing.
Ever since its first appearance in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson's
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has proven itself to be a
tale of undiminished power for readers all over the world. But the
story of the respectable Dr Jekyll, even in a London setting, has
links that stretch back to the narrow wynds of Edinburgh and the
bleak moors and shores of the North. This collection reveals the
Scottish origins of Stevenson's great masterpiece of psychological
fiction and his stories of possession, doubleness and terror, and
uncovers his fascination with the uncanny which brought the creator
of Mr Hyde screamingly awake one winter's night over one hundred
years ago.
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Three Scottish Poets (Paperback, Main)
Edwin Morgan, Norman MacCaig, Liz Lochhead; Introduction by Roderick Watson
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R359
R285
Discovery Miles 2 850
Save R74 (21%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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MACCAIG * MORGAN * LOCHHEAD This book contains a selection of the
finest work from three of Scotland's best-known and best-loved
poets: Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead. They have
fascinated and charmed thousands of readers and listeners across
Europe and America with the energy, humour and compassion of their
vision. MacCaig's memorable celebrations of the physical world and
the tragic-comic note of many of his short lyrics contrast
strikingly with Morgan's poems on the modern world and city life.
Liz Lochhead writes with an alert and sensitive eye on personal
relationships and women's experience of them. The book provides an
invaluable introduction to modern Scottish poetry and to the poets
who are arguably its greatest practitioners.
Kidnapped - Catriona - The Master of Ballantrae - Weir of Hermiston
These four great novels take us deep into Robert Louis Stevenson's
imaginative and bitter-sweet relationship with his native country.
Kidnapped, and its sequel Catriona, are renowned the world over as
supreme stories of adventure and romance. On another level they
also explore the subtle divisions of Scottish history and character
in the eighteenth century, and (some would say) the present day.
The Master of Ballantrae takes a darker and more disturbing turn,
with its tale of rival brothers caught in a webof hatred,
obsession, love and betrayal which draws them to their end in the
frozen wastes of North America. Stevenson's fascination with the
divided nature of the human self (most obviously demonstrated in Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde) appears again in the Weir of Hermiston with its
terrible confrontation between a father and his son. With an
unsurpassed combination of physical adventure and psychological
insight, The Scottish Novels have moved and thrilled readers and
writers from Stevenson's contemporaries to the present day.
Roderick Watson is a poet of introspection and retrospection. In
the rich distillation of his language, the images of a remembered
picnic, a Tuscan encounter, an out-of-date postcard, a holiday
cottage - all these assume an iconic intensity in the quiet
deliberation of this verse. Roderick Watson is a poet who ponders
rather than postures. Each one of these poems, in his accomplished
Scots as well as in English, is a pleasure to read, to re-read and
to remember. -- Philip Hobsbaum
Norman MacCaig's poetry is clear and lucid and filled with the
shifting light of Edinburgh and Assynt. MacCaig stands in the first
rank of twentieth-century poets: Seamus Heaney said of him, "He
means poetry to me". Roderick Watson's SCOTNOTE study guide will
enhance any student's enjoyment of MacCaig's poetry, as well as
providing a deeper understanding of the poet's craft.
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