‘A Secret Reservoir’: First Hymn to Lenin and Scots Unbound

Abstract

To Circumjack Cencrastus marked the end of a major period in MacDiarmid’s life and poetry. In the 1920s the mode of his best work was lyrical, developing from single brief lyrics to long poetic sequences of interconnected lyrics and directly philosophic material. Its most striking effects depend on distinctive use of vocabulary and imagery. The poetry of the 1930s is more diverse and problematical, its successes less clearly definable and its failures more disturbing. While it has been dismissed out of hand, defensively justified and selectively praised, until recently there was wide-spread agreement that his reputation must rest on the early lyrics. Reconsideration of the series of poems on Langholm and more careful reading of a few discursive poems like ‘On a Raised Beach’ are changing this view somewhat. But a central problem for MacDiarmid’s later work remains, ‘How did the poetry change and why?’