Gawin Douglas

J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen)

Ed. by J. Derrick McClure, University of Aberdeen
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Gina Lyle (University of York), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

Born c. 1475
Died 1522
Activity 1495-1522

Places

Born in Scotland
Active in Scotland

Activities

Primary

Poet

Resources

Douglas' Works

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Gavin Douglas’s translation of Virgil’s

Aeneid

is not only the greatest single poetical work, at least by some estimates, in the Scots tongue, but one of the earliest and finest secular translations in European literature. The importance of this work is twofold: it marks the zenith of the magnificent literary efflorescence of Scots in the late mediaeval and Renaissance periods, and it stands at the fountain-head of the great sequence of translations which, in Scotland and England alone, includes Golding’s Ovid and Caesar, North’s Plutarch, Chapman’s Homer, Stewart’s Ariosto and Urquhart’s Rabelais. Yet Douglas’s period of poetic activity represents only a small part of an active and chequered career in which he participated to the full in the hectic politics of Church and…

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2843 words

Citation: McClure, J. Derrick. "Gawin Douglas". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 March 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1295, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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