Abstract
Discusses the first published item, a short play, signed with the name 'Hugh M'acDiamid', and sets in its biographical and historical context just after the First World War and in the literary context of 1922 and international modernism, in 1922, viewing it as 'an encapsulation of its moment, and most importantly as an elegiac tribute to a friend,' arguing that 'Performing "Nisbet" as a play intimates the drama of fractured modernist selfhood implicit in the written text,' and concluding that it should be seen 'in the whole national context of Scotland finding a way towards a reconstruction of itself, a place in which a new ‘home’ might be made, by such characters as are imagined here, and those who come later: a purpose which remained MacDiarmid’s indomitable dedication.' [Ed.]
Recommended Citation
Riach, Alan
(2024)
"The Ghost of John Nisbet: Hugh MacDiarmid’s First Published Work,"
Studies in Scottish Literature:
Vol. 49:
Iss.
1, 11–27.
DOI: 10.51221/sc.ssl.2024.49.1.3
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol49/iss1/3
Included in
Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons