Macklin, Ian

From sixteen he worked as a shoemaker on his native island. Three years later, having completed his studies, he worked for a year in Glasgow as an apprentice; Upon returning to the island, he engaged in trade. In 1810 he was drafted into the mountain police of Argyll . Not wanting to serve, made a pledge of 40 pounds; his release from military service dated January 17, 1811 . According to colleagues, the young man was a shoemaker unimportant, inclined to poetry. For his time and position, he was well educated, knew Gaelic and English , was engaged in collecting bards; enjoyed the patronage of the laird from the northeast of the island of Call .

In 1815 he took a walking tour of Argyll, collecting songs and manuscripts of Gaelic poems; among his finds were unique records of seven poems of the warrior poet Alexander McKinnon (1770-1814), who fought against Napoleon in the Netherlands and in Egypt . In total, the manuscript amounted to 110 poems; most of them have not been preserved anywhere else. Macklin was well acquainted with the writings of his major Gaelic predecessors, primarily Alexander MacDonald and Duncan Ban MacIntyre . On the contrary, his acquaintance with English (including Scottish) poetry was not deep: he may have read Allan Ramsey's “The Tender Shepherd,” a copy of which was found among his books.

In 1818, in Edinburgh, the poet published a collection of poems ( Orain nuadh ghaedhlach ); the book was dedicated to Alexander Macklin, Esq. from Call. The book contained 22 poems by Macklin himself and 34 works by other poets: not counting the songs of Alexander McKinnon, Macklin revealed unknown texts by the poetesses Marie Nick-Alastar (1569-1674) (according to other sources: 1615? -1706?) And Marie Nick-Lahan (c. 1660 - after 1751).

With the money that the publication brought, the poet emigrated to Canada . In early August 1819, with his wife and three children, the poet sailed from Tobermory on the island of Mull on the ship Economy; October 1, 1819 landed in Picto (near New Glasgow ). In the summer of the following year, together with his eldest son, he rebuilt a house that he named Khutor-on-Holm ( Gelsk. Baile-Chnoic ); engaged in uprooting trees and growing potatoes. On a farm near the Barney River, the poet lived extremely hard. It was then that his best poems were written, including the famous “Song of America”, also known as “Forest Urman” and “The Bard in Canada”: this little poem repeats exactly the rhythm and length of “Dividing the Fogs” by Duncan Ban MacIntyre, but, In contrast to the latter's light pantheism , Maclean portrays the nature of the New World as deeply hostile to man. Macklin felt betrayed by the “recruiters” after being relatively well off at home: in Canada, potatoes served his family all year round; however, more than physical labor, was severed from isolation from traditionally oral Gaelic poetry. In the early 1830s, Macklin's poem, which he sent to his elder brother, the poet Donald Macklin (1775-1868), became known in his native islands, serving as a pretext for many to refuse emigration.

Friends of Bard Macklin (as they began to call him in Canada, in his homeland they still call him "Bard of the ruler of the island of Call"), worried about him, they wanted to send money so that he returned; he was offered a rent-free plot on his native island - the bard of Canada described it so realistically and harshly. But Maclean did not return; softened and the mood of his poetry. In 1830, Bard again moved to the northeast, at Addington Forks, leaving the former farm to his sons. Since that time, he stopped doing housework: the poet was not hardy, he was overcome by rheumatism, and children (four sons and two daughters) could feed his father.

Bard Macklin continued to be published in Scotland. In 1835, in Glasgow , at the Maurice Ogle printing house, a collection of his spiritual hymns was very casually printed (the poet was an ardent Presbyterian ). Before his death, the poet was preparing a new edition of the book, but he did not finish the work. The piercing elegia to the death of Bard Macklin in the traditional cumha genre was echoed by another classic of Gaelic poetry of Nova Scotia - Alastar Allen Vor , "The Keppock Bard" (1820-1905); The elegy was published in The Casket, NS, 1853, No. 3 (March) —that is, a quarter of a century earlier than all the major works of Bard Macklin appeared in print.

The poet was buried in the “Bard Valley” near St. George's Bay, behind which lies Cap Breton, in the heart of the only surviving islet of Gaelic Canada. Under one tombstone his wife, nee Isabella Black (1786-1877), was buried with him.

Only eight years after the death of Bard Macklin, his poems began to be included in the anthology of Gaelic poetry. The two major editions were prepared by the poet’s grandson, literary critic, Gaelic poetry specialist in Scotland and Canada, and partly the poet A. Macklin Sinclair (1840–1924). First, “Spiritual Poems” appeared ( Dàin spioradail ; Edinburgh, 1880): the book included 45 poems by Macklin, to which were added 9 poems by the New Scotland classic James Drummond McGregor (1759–1830) and one by one by D. Blair (1815–1893) and J. McGillavry (c. 1792-1862).

In 1881, a collection of “secular” poems by Bard Macklin's “Forest Harp” ( Clarsach na Coille ) was published in Glasgow - 44 works; the compiler added about 60 poems of other poets to them, the texts of which were mainly taken from manuscripts brought by his grandfather to Canada (the oldest, “Manuscript of the Isle of Mull”, dates from 1768, when there was not a single anthology of Gaelic poetry). The book also included works by Gaelic poets of Nova Scotia, the eldest son of the bard - C. Macklin (1813-1880); much was printed for the first time. The book was reprinted in 1928, but it was possible to verify verses with autographs only in our time. The book is equipped with an extensive and partly memoir preface by the compiler. To this day, this edition remains the most comprehensive. The academic edition of the poem collection of America’s “Most Significant Gaelic Poet” is an essential task of Celtology; the poet’s works have recently appeared in print, judging by which the text of the autographs differs from that published by A. Macklin Sinclair and preserved by tradition.

The Russian translation of “Songs of America” was made by E. Witkowski ^[1] .

1. ↑ witkowsky: BARD MACLIN: LETTER FROM THE NEW SCOTLAND

1. Mac-na-Ceàrdadh, G. (deas.) An t-Òranaiche: no Co-Thional Taghte do Òrain Ùr agus Shean. Glasgow: Archibald Sinclair & Robert McGregor, 1879.
2. Na Bàird Leathanach. The Maclean Bards. By the Rev. A. Maclean Sinclair. Vol. 2. Charlottown, 1900.
3. Alexander Mackenzie, The history of the Highland clearances. 2nd ed., Glasgow, 1914.
4. Watson, William J. (William John). Glasgow: An Comunn Gdhealach; Inverness: The Northern Counties Print. and Pub. Co., 1918. Bardachd Ghaidhlig. [Specimens of Gaelic poetry: 1550-1900]
5. MacLeòid, Calum Iain M. Bardachd a Albainn Nuaidh. Glasgow: Gairm, 1970
6. Derick Thomson, An introduction to Gaelic poetry. London, 1974.
7. Margaret Macdonell, The Emigrant Experience: Songs of Highland Emigrants in North America. Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1982.
8. Dictionnaire Biographique Du Canada: De 1836 a 1850. Par G. Ramsay Cook, Jean Hamelin, Francess G. Halpenny. Presses Université Laval, 1988.
9. Colm Ó Baoill. Maclean manuscripts in Nova Scotia: A catalog of the Gaelic verse collections MG15G / 2/1 and MG15G / 2/2 in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia. Aberdeen University, Dept. of Celtic. 2001.
10. Meek, DE (ed.). Caran an t-Saoghail. The wiles of the world: Anthology of 19th Century Scottish Gaelic Verse. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2003.
11. Anne Lorne Gilles. Songs of Gaelic Scotland. Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2005.
12. Span of the Mists. Pages of Scottish Gaelic poetry of the XVII-XX centuries. / Translation from Gaelic E. Witkowski and E. Kisterova. M. "Aquarius", 2018

• Iain Mac Illeain. Orain nuadh ghaedhlach. Duneudainn: R. Meinnearach, 1818.
• Iain Mac-Gilleain. Dàin spioradail. Ed. A. MacLean Sinclair. Maclachlan & Stewart, Edinburgh, 1880.
• Clarsach na Coille. A Collection of Gaelic Poetry. By the Rev. A. Sinclaire. Springville, Nova Scotia. Glasgow, Archibald Sinclair, 1881.