Thursday, March 24, 2016

Slight Update to my Persona

A Scottish poet in the 15th and 16th century was apparently called a makar (or makir), meaning both poet and maker. My persona is from the mid-14th century Scotland. I think that's close enough for me to use the term. My persona has therefore been slightly updated.

Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say about the makar:

Alternative titles: makaris; maker; makeris; Scottish Chaucerian
Makar, also spelled Maker (Scottish: “maker,” or “poet”), plural Makaris, or Makeris, also called Scottish Chaucerian, any of the Scottish courtly poets who flourished from about 1425 to 1550. The best known are Robert HenrysonWilliam DunbarGavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay; the group is sometimes expanded to include James I of Scotland and Harry the Minstrel, or Blind Harry.Because Geoffrey Chaucer was their acknowledged master and they often employed his verse forms and themes, the makaris are usually called “Scottish Chaucerians”; but actually they are a product of more than one tradition. Chaucerian influence is apparent in their courtly romances and dream allegories, yet even these display a distinctive “aureate” style, a language richly ornamented by polysyllabic Latinate words.
In addition, the makaris used different styles for different types of poems. The language that they used in their poems ranges from courtly aureate English, to mixtures of English and Scots, to the broadest Scots vernacular, as their subjects range from moral allegory to everyday realism, flyting (abuse), or grotesquely comic Celtic fantasy.