The Voice of the People: Hamish Henderson and Scottish Cultural Politics

How might the alienation of the artist in modern Scotland be overcome? How do you incite a popular folk revival? Can a poet truly speak with the Voice of the people’? And what happens to the writer who rejects print culture in favour of becoming Anon? The life and times of polymath, scholar, author and folk- hero, Hamish Henderson (1919-2002), poses, and helps us to answer, these questions. This book examines his life-long commitment to finding a form of artistic expression suitable for post-war Europe. Though Henderson is a major figure in Scottish cultural history, his reputation is largely maintained through anecdotes and radical folk songs. This study explores his ideas in their intellectual, cultural and political contexts. It describes how all of his works – in war poetry, song collection, folklore scholarship, folksong revivalism, literary translation, and vicious public debates – reflect this desire to see the artist fully reintegrated in society.