Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Landscape: Landscape as Sign

In a 1911 letter, the young Hugh MacDiarmid told his professor, George Ogilvie, of his love of mountaineering: ‘I am constantly crossing mountains, by unutterably rocky tracks’, foretelling his life-long fascination for the Scottish landscape. From his early Sonnets of the Highland Hills (1921) to his late triptych Direadh, the North of Scotland has always played a prominent part in MacDiarmid’s poetry, which kept much room as well for the South, especially for the colours and rivers of Langh..