Alexander Scott (20th century)

This article is about the 20th-century Scottish poet. For the 16th-century Scottish poet, see Alexander Scott (16th century). For other people with the same name, see Alexander Scott.

Alexander Scott (1920-1989), Selected Poems, 1950. Courtesy Goodreads.

Alexander Mackie Scott (1920–1989) was a Scottish poet, playwright, and academic.

Life

Scott was born in Aberdeen.

He wrote poetry in both Scots and Scottish English as well as plays, literary reviews, and critical studies of literature.

He was latterly a tutor and reader of Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow, where he was instrumental in the struggle to create the 1st Department of Scottish Literature to exist in Scotland, established in the academic year 1971-72.

In 1972, Scott was a founder of the Lallans Society (later the Scots Language Society). He was a member of its committee from the outset and served as Preses from 1974 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1983. He also served as President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies from 1976 to 1979. In 1985 he succeeded Robert McLellan as Honorary Preses.

In 1983, Scott became a founding editor of the periodical New Writing Scotland.

Publications

Poetry

• The Latest in Elegies. Glasgow: Caledonian Press, 1949.
• Selected Poems. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, for the Saltire Society, 1950.
• Double Agent: Poems in English and Scots. Preston, Lancashire, UK: Akros, 1972.
• Selected Poems, 1943-1974. Preston, UK: Akros Publications, 1975.
• Collected Poems (edited by David S. Robb). Edinburgh: Mercat Press, 1994.

Play

• Untrue Thomas: A play in one act. Glasgow : Caledonian Press, 1952.

Non-fiction

• Still Life: William Soutar, 1898-1943. London: Chambers, 1958.
• The MacDiarmid Makars, 1923 - 1972. Preston, UK: Akros, 1972.
• Sing Frae the Hert: Literary criticism (edited by Neil R. MacCallum). Edinburgh: Scottish Cultural Press, 1996.

Edited

• Modern Scots Verse, 1922-1977. Preston, UK: Akros, 1978.
• Scotch Passion: An anthology of Scottish erotic poetry. London: R. Hale, 1982.
• The Comic Poems of William Tennant (edited with Maurice Lindsay). Edinburgh: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1989.
• Voices of Our Kind: An anthology of modern Scottish poetry from 1920 to the present. (3rd ed.), Edinburgh, Chambers, 1987.

New Writing Scotland

• New Writing Scotland (edited with James Aitchison). Aberdeen : Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1983.
• New Writing Scotland 2 (edited with James Aitchison). Aberdeen : Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1984.
• New Writing Scotland 3 (edited with Carl MacDougall). Aberdeen : Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1985.
• New Writing Scotland 4 (edited with Carl MacDougall). Aberdeen : Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1986.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

External links

Books

• Collected Poems at Amazon.com

About

• Alexander Scott (1920-1989) in the Scottish Poetry Library
• J Derrick McClure, online biography of Alexander Scott
• International journal of Scottish literature review of David Robb's biography of Alexander Scott
• ‘Sing til the warld we loo’d’: Alexander Scott’s War Poems at the Association for Scottish Literary Studies