The Quest for Identity in Sorley MacLean’s ‘An Cuilithionn’: Journeying into Politics and Beyond
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Date
2008Item status
Restricted AccessAuthor
Dymock, Emma
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Abstract
This thesis aims to deepen our understanding of ‘An Cuilithionn’, which is generally
considered to be Sorley MacLean’s most important political poem, by examining the main
symbol in the poem, the mountain, in its interaction with the secondary symbols, and also the
historical-political figures who figure in the poem. Very little detailed work on ‘An
Cuilithionn’ has been carried out, and for this reason this thesis has to establish a sound
foundation for research on ‘An Cuilithionn’. A multi-disciplinary approach allows a fuller
understanding of the poem to emerge.
The specific aim of the thesis is to understand more fully how heart and mind interact in
MacLean’s vision of the hero on the mountain. I view ‘An Cuilithionn’ as MacLean’s
meditation on human nature and, because this poem was composed at a time when many of
the Scottish intelligentsia of which MacLean was part were assessing their own views on
action and pacifism, I also postulate that in ‘An Cuilithionn’ MacLean contemplates the
nature of his own identity in that light. The argument of the thesis is based on the premise
that in ‘An Cuilithionn’ politics significantly contribute to how MacLean views heroism and
his identity is defined by how he perceives figures of history such as Lenin, Dimitrov and
James Connolly. I use the psychological approaches of both Julia Kristeva and C.G. Jung as
well as the literary theory of Northrop Frye to gain a broader perspective on the topic.
In Chapter 1 MacLean’s literary influences as well as the contemporary literary and political
climate of Scotland in general are examined. In Chapter 2 and 3 I define the theoretical
framework of my inter-disciplinary approach to the subject. In Chapter 4 I speculate whether
the main symbols in the poem, the mountain and morass, originate from MacLean’s own
personal view of the universe and in Chapter 5 I examine the secondary symbols, the seamonster
and stallion, which reflect the personal and political themes in the poem. The
dynamic, which I propose is present in the symbols that I have already looked at in the
previous chapters, is further considered in Chapter 6 in relation to MacLean’s ideal of the
self-sacrificed hero using, in particular, James Frazer’s meta-narrative of the dying and
reviving god and Northrop Frye’s literary myth of death and rebirth. In Chapter 7 I connect
the theme of self-sacrifice in ‘An Cuilithionn’ to MacLean’s use of Hugh MacDiarmid’s
poem, ‘If there are bounds to any man’, which he incorporated into Part V of ‘An
Cuilithionn’, and I show that MacLean’s socialist ideals are inextricably linked to his belief
in the eternal striving of the hero, which leads him towards a fuller understanding of the
course of mankind as a whole.
This thesis raises the question of how MacLean views the individual and the collective as
well as the personal and the political. It also explores MacLean’s responses to his major
influences such as Communism and religion and examines how he deals with these in both an
intellectual and emotional way.