Emma Dymock – författare

A comprehensive selection of religious poetry that Scotland has produced over the centuries, including some Gaelic voices and reflecting the mixed religious profile of Scotland today. An earlier edition published in 2000 was a huge success, selling out very quickly. This eagerly awaited follow-up offers the very best from a diverse, often turbulent history and reveals an attractive and distinctive spirituality that is unique to Scotland.The poetry spans 15 centuries and includes poets from every corner of Scotland. It reflects the rich range of language across regions and centuries and is a unique collection of the deepest religious thought of a nation.Selected and introduced by three experts in the field, this offers an attractive and informed volume that will appeal to all lovers of Scottish literature.

Born in Tayport, Fife, on 5 June 1913, Douglas Young was one of the most charismatic and distinguished Scots of his day. Described by Nigel Tranter as a 'Poet, scholar, author, linguist, raconteur and fighter of causes', he was a genuine polymath, an intellectual giant, and his range of interests was exceptional. A brilliant Classical scholar, who studied and later taught Latin and Greek, he had a great facility for languages. Above all he was fluent in 'Lallans' or Lowland Scots, in the tradition of Burns, Scott and Stevenson. Young was one of the leading 'Scottish Renaissance' poets or 'neoLallans Makars', and his two notable volumes of his poetry were Auntran Blads: an outwale of verses (1943) and A Braird O Thristles (1947), included here. Among the mighty coterie of post-MacDiarmid makars, Douglas Young stands out as an individual voice. To their common mission of restoring the Scots tongue as a fully-developed poetic language, he brings his formidable erudition, his comprehensive knowledge of Scottish literature of all periods and his highly-polished prosodic technique. To a greater degree than almost any of his contemporaries, he succeeds in integrating words from the mediaeval period, from the era of Burns and from his own time and place into a consistent idiolect, which he employs for poetic statements that are often beautiful, often profound, and always thought-provoking. This new edition of his poetry will confirm his place as one of the central figures of the twentieth-century Scottish Renaissance. - J. Derrick McClure Even in the fifties when I was starting out through university politics, Douglas Young was a legend. For young minds, his two jail sentences for refusing conscription were a singular demonstration of moral courage and he paid the penalty of facing down the establishment by not being awarded the professorship his talents deserved. - Gordon Wilson, Former Chairman of the SNP and MP for Dundee East

This collected editon of Sorley MacLean brings together published poetry from MacLean's own edited volumes of poetry, poetry previously published in various magazines, literary journals and anthologies, and poetry which has never been published before. The poems are given in their original Gaelic with English translations.The volume opens with a biographical summary of Maclean's childhood on Raasay, his life at university and war experiences, and examines MacLean's effect on Gaelic and Scottish literature, and his literary, political and philosophical influences, which included Gaelic traditional song, Romanticism and Modernism, as well as Communism and Fascism.

Along with his contemporaries Edwin Morgan and Hugh MacDiarmid, Sorley MacLean is recognised as one of the most important Scottish poets of the twentieth century. Born at Oscaig on the island of Raasay in 1911, MacLean was greatly influenced by Gaelic tradition and by contemporary cultural and political ideas from around the world. In many ways he brought Scottish Gaelic poetry into the modern era, and he is a key figure in modern Scottish literature. MacLean's poetry ranges beyond Scotland to confront European and world events and politics. This book offers a detailed study of MacLean's poems, providing insight into the context of his work. It also includes close readings of selected poems that best represent his key themes and ideas. Emma Dymock's SCOTNOTE study guide is ideal for senior school pupils and students of all ages as a general introduction or as a starting point for more in-depth study.