MacDiarmid, Hugh (Pseudonym of Christopher Murray Grieve) 1892–

MacDiarmid is a Scottish poet, essayist, editor, translator, short story writer, biographer, and autobiographer. Although he has written in English, it is primarily as a writer of Scots verse that MacDiarmid is known. His acknowledged purpose as a poet has been to "revive the independent Scottish tradition of poetry," and to this end MacDiarmid has employed the form of traditional Scots ballads in his verse. The content of his poems is highly political, attributable to MacDiarmid's nationalist and Communist sentiments. (See also CLC, Vols. 2, 4, and Contemporary Authors, Vols. 5-8, rev. ed.)