William Drummond of Hawthornden

David Reid (University of Stirling)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Gina Lyle (University of York), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

Born 13 Dec 1585
Died 4 Dec 1649
Activity 1613-1644

Places

Born in Scotland
Active in Scotland

Activities

Primary

Pamphleteer
Poet

Other

Story-writer

Resources

Drummond of Hawthornden's Works

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William Drummond is the last significant figure in Scottish poetry before the Eighteenth Century. The gap between him and Alan Ramsay indicates a crisis in Scottish literary culture brought on by the departure of the Scottish court to London with the accession of James VI of Scotland to the throne of Great Britain. James had been a patron of poets, dabbled in poetry himself and delivered himself of

Rewellis and Cautelis

[Do's and Don'ts] for its composition. Not only had the court been a centre of literary activity where men of letters such as Drummond's uncle, William Fowler, and his friend William Alexander of Menstrie, later Earl of Stirling, gained employment, it had also given authority to Scots as a literary language. These conditions were now abolished. Poets who had published…

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1193 words

Citation: Reid, David. "William Drummond of Hawthornden". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 October 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1319, accessed 26 November 2024.]