Thistle and Rose

A Study of Hugh MacDiarmid's Poetry

Ann Edwards Boutelle

1981
256 pages
ISBN 0-8387-5023-0

While Hugh MacDiarmid's reputation is now secure not only in Scotland but also in the international world of the modern poetic sequence, a detailed and knowledgeable guide to his work has been hitherto lacking. Concentrating on MacDiarmid's major poems, Professor Boutelle traces here the themes, influences, motifs and passions that haunt his work. He was a man who dared to shape an idiosyncratic and brave vision, one whose ingredients include the vast possibilities for human achievement and the brutal ugliness of human failure. He was a poet who broke new ground, who found a new voice, who created a new myth.

About the author:

Ann Edwards Boutelle is an Associate Professor of English at Suffolk University, Boston, where she specializes in twentieth century literature, Canadian literature, and women's studies. Additionally, she now holds the position of Visiting Associate Professor, Mount Holyoke College. The numerous publications to which she has contributed include Contemporary Literature, The Dalhousie Review, and Vogue.

Born in Perthshire and raised in Argyll, she was educated at Oban High School and the University of St Andrews, where she organized a conference of the Scottish poets in 1965. In 1972 she earned her doctorate in modern British literature from New York University, and she now lives, with her husband and two children, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.