Collected Poems and Songs of George Campbell Hay (edited by Michel Byrne), 2002. Courtesy Amazon.com.
George Campbell Hay (1915-1984) was a Scottish poet and translator who used the patronymic Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa.
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Hay was born in Elderslie, Renfrewshire, and brought up in Tarbert, Kintyre, and in Argyll, where his father, novelist John MacDougall Hay, had been born.[1]
He was educated at Fettes College (which he despised) and the University of Oxford.
Career[]
Hay served in the British Army during World War II in North Africa, Italy and Macedonia, a region which featured in much of his work. He then lived for a long period in Edinburgh where he worked in the National Library of Scotland.[1]
He was a Scottish nationalist.[1] His life was difficult, with long periods of hard living, including hospitalisation and homelessness.[2]
He was a frequent contributor to Gairm magazine, and other Gaelic periodicals.
Writing[]
Hay was a multilingual poet who wrote in Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and English. He also wrote poetry in French, Italian, and Norwegian, and translated poetry from many languages into Gaelic.
Critic Kurt Wittig suggested Gaelic traits were more evident in his English than his Scots poetry.[3]
Mochtàr is Dùghall, an unfinished epic about a Highland soldier and a North African Arab in World War II, was published in 1982.[1]
Recognition[]
His Collected Poems and Songs appeared in 2000, edited by Michel Byrne, and has attracted new attention to his work.[2]
In popular culture[]
Some of his poetry was set to music by Francis George Scott.[3]
Publications[]
Poetry[]
- Fuaran slèibh. Glasgow: Uilleam Mac Gill' Fhaolain, 1947.
- Wind on Loch Fyne. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1948.
- O na ceithir àirdean. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1952.
- Mochtàr is Dùghall. Glasgow: Roinn nan Cànan Ceilteach, Oilthigh Ghlaschu, 1982.
- Seeker, Reaper. Edinburgh: Saltire Society, 1988.
- Selected Poems and Songs (edited by Michel Byrne). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, for the Lorimer Memorial Trust, 2000.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
See also[]
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References[]
- Burns, John (1983), "Terrible Beauty: George Campbell Hay," review of Mochtàr is Dùghall, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus #13 (Summer 1983), 45-46.
- Burns, John (1984), "Generous Spirited Heart: The poetry of George Campbell Hay," in Parker, Geoff (ed.), Cencrastus #18 (Autumn 1984), 28-30.
- Campbell, James (1 March 2003). "The Eighth Man". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/mar/01/featuresreviews.guardianreview13.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Thomson, Derick (2004). "Hay, George Campbell [Mac Iain Deòrsa]". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40321.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Campbell, "The Eighth Man", The Guardian, March 1, 2003.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wittig, Kurt (1978). The Scottish Tradition in Literature. The Mercat Press. pp. 305-7.
- ↑ Search results = au:George Campbell Hay, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 24, 2021.
External links[]
- Poems
- George Campbell Hay at the Scottish Poetry Library (4 poems)
- Books
- George Campbell Hay at Amazon.com
- About
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