William Soutar (28 April 1898 – 15 October 1943) was a
Scottish poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
and diarist who wrote in English and in
Braid Scots. He is known best for his
epigrams
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two millen ...
.
Life and works
William Soutar was born on 28 April 1898 on South Inch Terrace in
Perth, Scotland, the only child of John Soutar (1871–1958), master joiner, and his wife, Margaret Smith (1870–1954), who wrote poetry. His parents belonged to the
United Free Church of Scotland
The United Free Church of Scotland (UF Church; gd, An Eaglais Shaor Aonaichte, sco, The Unitit Free Kirk o Scotland) is a Scottish Presbyterian denomination formed in 1900 by the union of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland (or UP) and ...
. He was educated at Southern District School, Perth, and at
Perth Academy
Perth Academy is a state comprehensive secondary school in Perth, Scotland. It was founded in 1696. The institution is a non-denominational one. The school occupies ground on the side of a hill in the Viewlands area of Perth, and is within the P ...
, before joining the
wartime Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
in 1916. By the time he was demobilized in November 1918, he was suffering from what would be diagnosed in 1924 as
ankylosing spondylitis
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a type of arthritis characterized by long-term inflammation of the joints of the spine typically where the spine joins the pelvis. Occasionally areas affected may include other joints such as the shoulders or hi ...
, a form of chronic inflammatory arthritis.
Soutar began to study medicine at the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
in 1919, but switched to English. He did not excel academically, but began to contribute to the student magazine. His first volume, ''Gleanings by an Undergraduate'' (1923), appeared at his father's expense, as did several others. He began to keep a diary on 18 April 1919. During that period he made contact with
Hugh MacDiarmid, then in
Montrose, and with
Ezra Pound. MacDiarmid at the time was abandoning poetry in English in favour of "synthetic Scots", a literary language compiled from dialects and earlier writers such as
Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson (Middle Scots: Robert Henrysoun) was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots ''makars'', he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renai ...
and
William Dunbar
William Dunbar (born 1459 or 1460 – died by 1530) was a Scottish makar, or court poet, active in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV and produced a large body of work i ...
.
Soutar's work correspondingly altered radically, and he became a leading figure of the
Scottish Literary Renaissance, whom posthumous editors would dub "one of the greatest poets Scotland has produced." His family adopted an orphaned cousin of his, seven-year-old Evelyn, in 1927, and this became a spur to him to write also for children. ''Seeds in the Wind'' (1933) was a volume of "bairn-rhymes" in Scots.
By 1930 Soutar was bedridden with his disease. He died in 1943 of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
contracted in 1929. He is buried in Perth's
Jeanfield and Wellshill Cemetery. His collected poems, edited by MacDiarmid, were published in 1948. His journal, ''The Diary of a Dying Man'', appeared posthumously. One form of verse he used was the
cinquain (now known as American cinquains), which he preferred to call ''epigrams''. Interest in Soutar's work in Scots and English and for adults and children, has revived considerably since the 1980s, although none of his verse was in print for his centenary in 1998. In 2014 he was the subject of a BBC radio programme: ''The Still Life Poet'' by
Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead Hon FRSE (born 26 December 1947) is a Scottish poet, playwright, translator and broadcaster. Between 2011 and 2016 she was the Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, and served as Poet Laureate for Glasgow between 2005 and 2011.
E ...
.
Musical settings
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
set twelve Soutar poems for tenor voice and piano in the 1969
song cycle
A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online''
The songs are either for solo voice ...
''
Who Are These Children?'' (op. 84).
Erik Chisholm set a range of Soutar's verse, including ''Summer Song'', ''A Dirge for Summer'', and the humorous settings ''The Prodigy, The Braw Plum'' and ''The Three Worthies''.
James MacMillan
Sir James Loy MacMillan, (born 16 July 1959) is a Scottish classical composer and conductor.
Early life
MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, in North Ayrshire, but lived in the East Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977. His father is James MacMi ...
set several Soutar's Scots-language poems in a style that drew on traditional folk song: "Scots Song" (aka 'The Tryst', 1991), "Ballad" (1994) and "The Children" (1995) were collected as ''Three Scottish Songs'' in 1995. The album ''In a Sma' Room'', with settings by Debra Salem, Kevin Mackenzie and Paul Harrison, appeared in 2021.
Debrasalem.co.uk
Selected published works
*''Gleanings by an Undergraduate'' (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1923)
*''Brief Words. One Hundred Epigrams'' (Edinburgh/London: The Moray Press, 1935)
*''Seeds in the Wind, Poems in Scots for Children'' (London: Andrew Dakers, 1943)
*''Diaries of a Dying Man'' (Edinburgh: Canongate Press, 1954) . In fact only a short selection
*''The Collected Poems of William Soutar'', ed. Hugh MacDiarmid (London: Andrew Dakers, 1948)
*''Poems of William Soutar: a New Selection'', ed. W. R. Aitken (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1988)
*''The Diary of a Dying Man'' (Edinburgh: Chapman, 1991)
*''At the Year's Fa': Selected Poems in Scots and English'' (Perth: Perth & Kinross Libraries, 2001)
External resources
*The Scottish Poetry Library site includes a handful of Soutar's poems
Retrieved 16 August 2013.
More can be found i
an
Retrieved 16 August 2013
A sample of Soutar's cinquains.
References
External links
William Soutar Perth Walks
– Perth and Kinross Council
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soutar, William
1898 births
1943 deaths
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Lallans poets
Scots Makars
Writers from Perth, Scotland
People educated at Perth Academy
20th-century Scottish poets
Scottish male poets
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
20th-century British male writers
Scottish Renaissance
Royal Navy personnel of World War I
Tuberculosis deaths in Scotland