20th Century
Since about 1900, plays have been written and performed in Scottish Gaelic.
The first novel in Scottish Gaelic was John MacCormick's Dùn-Àluinn, no an t-Oighre 'na Dhìobarach, which was serialised in the People's Journal in 1910, before publication in book form in 1912. The publication of a second Scottish Gaelic novel, An t-Ogha Mòr by Angus Robertson, followed within a year.
Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna was a Scottish Gaelic poet who served in the First World War, and as a war poet described the use of poison gas in his poem Òran a' Phuinnsuin ("Song of the Poison"). His poetry is part of oral literature, as he himself never learnt to read and write in his native language.
As part of the Scottish Gaelic Renaissance, Sorley MacLean's work in Scottish Gaelic in the 1930s gave new value to modern literature in that language. Iain Crichton Smith was more prolific in English but also produced much Gaelic poetry and prose, and also translated some of the work of Sorley Maclean from Gaelic to English, as well as some of his own poems originally composed in Gaelic. Much of his English language work was related to, or translated from, Gaelic equivalents.
Modern Gaelic poetry has been most influenced by Symbolism, transmitted via poetry in English, and by Scots poetry. Traditional Gaelic poetry utilised an elaborate system of metres, which modern poets have adapted to their own ends. George Campbell Hay looks back beyond the popular metres of the 19th and 20th centuries to forms of early Gaelic poetry. Donald MacAuley's poetry is concerned with place and community. The following generation of Gaelic poets writing at the end of the 20th century lived in a bilingual world to a greater extent than any other generation, with their work most often accompanied in publication by a facing text in English. Such confrontation has inspired semantic experimentation, seeking new contexts for words, and going as far as the explosive and neologistic verse of Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh (1948- ). Scottish Gaelic poetry has been the subject of translation not only into English, but also into other Celtic languages: Maoilios Caimbeul and Màiri NicGumaraid have been translated into Irish, and John Stoddart has produced anthologies of Gaelic poetry translated into Welsh.
Read more about this topic: Scottish Gaelic Literature
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