page_title: Sorley MacLean
section_title: Style
hierarchical_section_title: Sorley MacLean / Poetry / Style
caption_attribution_description: English: Tide in at Killiechronan At the head of Loch na Keal.
context_page_description: Sorley MacLean was a Scottish Gaelic poet, described by the Scottish Poetry Library as "one of the major Scottish poets of the modern era" because of his "mastery of his chosen medium and his engagement with the European poetic tradition and European politics". Nobel Prize Laureate Seamus Heaney credited MacLean with saving Scottish Gaelic poetry.
  He was raised in a strict Presbyterian family on the island of Raasay, immersed in Gaelic culture and literature from birth, but abandoned religion for socialism. In the late 1930s, he befriended many Scottish Renaissance figures, such as Hugh MacDiarmid and Douglas Young. He was wounded three times while serving in the Royal Corps of Signals during the North African Campaign. MacLean published little after the war, due to his perfectionism. In 1956, he became head teacher at Plockton High School, where he advocated for the use of the Gaelic language in formal education.
  In his poetry, MacLean juxtaposed traditional Gaelic elements with mainstream European elements, frequently comparing the Highland Clearances with contemporary events, especially the Spanish Civil War.
context_section_description: MacLean's poetry generally followed an older style of metre, based on the more dynamic patterns of the oral tradition rather than the strict, static metres of the written Gaelic poetry of the nineteenth century. He frequently combined metrical patters and shifted in the middle of a poem, achieving "sensuous effects" that cannot be translated. He typically used the traditional vowel rhymes, both internal and end-rhymes, that are ubiquitous in the oral tradition, but a few of his poems have less traditional rhyme schemes. However, he was flexible in his use of metre, "[combining] old and new in such a way that neither neutralizes each other," extending rather than repudiating tradition, in a way that is unique in Gaelic poetry. In MacInnes' analysis, "rhythmic patterns become a vital part of the meaning" of MacLean's poetry. Over time, his poems became less strict in their application of rhyme and metre. According to MacInnes, labels such as "classical" and "romantic", which have been applied respectively to the form and content of MacLean's poetry, are misleading because MacLean did not limit himself by those styles. Despite MacLean's reliance on the oral tradition, his poetry was not intended to be sung. Although he abandoned the "verbal codes" and intricate symbolism of the Gaelic tradition, MacLean occasionally used outmoded devices, such as the repeating of adjectives.
  MacLean's poetry frequently used Gaelic themes and references, such as place names, trees, and sea symbolism. A knowledge of that tradition would bring additional interpretations and appreciation to a reading of MacLean's poetry. Another important symbol in his work is the face, which represents romantic love.
  According to John MacInnes, MacLean's poetry "exhibits virtually an entire spectrum of language". Some of his poetry is transparent to a fluent Gaelic speaker, but the meaning of other poems needs to be untangled. MacLean coined very few neologisms; however, he revived or repurposed many obscure or archaic words. MacLean often said that he had heard these old words in Presbyterian sermons. According to MacInnes and Maoilios Caimbeul, MacLean's revival of these old, forgotten Gaelic words revolutionized literary Gaelic, by adding senses and a newness and modernity. Caimbeul wrote that MacLean's vocabulary is not "simple", but it is "natural" and arises naturally from everyday speech, although mixed with other influences.
  In contrast, the English translations were all written in a very straightforward style, flattening the language by the necessity to choose one English word for the ambiguity and connotations of the Gaelic one. According to Christopher Whyte, the English translations produce "an official interpretation, one that restricts and deadens the range of possible readings of the poem". English could not convey the pop that MacLean's revival of disused words brought to his Gaelic poetry. While the Gaelic poems were noted for their acoustic properties, the translations did not pay any particular attention to sound, instead focusing narrowly on literal meaning. MacLean emphasized that his "line-by-line translations" were not poetry; of the prose translation of An Cuilthionn that appeared in Dàin do Eimhir, he wrote, "my English version has not even the merit of very strict literal accuracy as I find more and more when I look over it". Seamus Heaney called the translations "cribs".
caption: The sea is a recurring theme in Gaelic poetry
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