Edwin Muir

Kirsten Matthews (University of Glasgow)
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Edwin Muir is best known as a poet and essayist. He identified himself variously as Orcadian, Scot and European. He was a part of the Scottish Literary Renaissance of the 1920s, actively praising the early Scots poems of Hugh MacDiarmid and contributing to journals such as

The Scottish Chapbook

and

The Scottish Nation

. He was also deeply influenced by the broader European literary scene, and his poetic career began in earnest while he was living in Germany. Along with his wife, Willa, he produced the first translations of Kafka’s

The Castle

,

The Trial

and

America

, and of Broch’s

The Sleepwalkers

; he and Willa were instrumental in introducing these works to the English-speaking intellectual community. He was praised by T. S. Eliot, and began his career as a critic writing for A. R.…

4122 words

Citation: Matthews, Kirsten. "Edwin Muir". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 May 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3243, accessed 22 November 2024.]

3243 Edwin Muir 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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