James Hogg

James Hogg (* December 1770 on a farm in Ettrick Forest, then county Selkirkshire, Scottish Borders district today, baptized on December 9, 1770, † November 21, 1835 on his farm Altrive Lake, Scottish Borders ) was a Scottish poet.

Life

James Hogg, called the Shepherd of Ettrick (The Ettrick Shepherd ), was the son of an impoverished sheep farmer and guarded themselves from an early age the sheep. The legends and songs of his country inflamed his imagination so that he began to write poetry without being able to read and write. He learned to read with difficulty, to record his seals. In 1801 he published at his own costs - without much success - a ribbon poems. He met Walter Scott know and assisted him in the collection of ballads for The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. In his own poems, he was inspired by these old folk ballads.

In 1807 he published a collection of poems under the title: The mountain bard and an essay on sheep, which earned him £ 300 profit. In February 1810, he went to Edinburgh. There, he edited the weekly magazine The Spy who had to cease publication soon. In 1813 he published The Queen 's Wake, a collection of stories and ballads that were supposedly sung by Scottish bard before Mary Stuart. In the collection that established his fame as a poet, the faerie tale Kilmeny and The Poetic Mirror are included.

Despite the large paragraph, which almost all found this works, Hogg had to contend with abject poverty. After him the Duke of Buccleuch gave to Altrive Lake at Yarrow an almost interest-free lease, where he no financial problems the epic Queen Hynde (1825 ) and The queer book (1832 ), a collection of poems against the emancipation of the Catholics and against the reform Bill, could accomplish.

However, the tributes that were given to him during a visit to London, he went to his head. He took over a larger lease and again had significant losses. Also the scale to 12 volumes Altrive tales brought him nothing, as the publisher after the publication of the first volume (including Hogg's autobiography, 1832) went bankrupt. His latest release were the Tales of the Wars of Montrose (1835, 3 vols ). He died poor on 21 November 1835 in Altrive Lake.

Although the poetic meaning Hoggs comes that of his compatriot Robert Burns not equal, however, it is in all of uneven educational deficiencies ago adherent great fidelity of observation and effective reproduction of the same can not be denied. His prose works are of varying quality.

New editions of his works got Thomas Thompson ( Poems and Life, Edinburgh 1874, 2 vols ). His daughter Mary Gray Garden was the Memorials of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd out (London, 1884).

Works

• The Pilgrims of the Sun ( 1815)
• Mador of the Moor (1816 )
• The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a justified Sinner (1824 )

Furthermore miracle legends and descriptions of the Scottish national character in prose:

• The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818 )
• Winter evening Tales ( 1819)
• The three Perils of Man (1822 )
• The three Perils of Woman ( 1823)
• The Jacovite Relics of Scotland (London 1820-21, 2 vols ), among others, the first in Blackwood 's Magazine and then under the title: The shepherd 's calendar published collected (ibid. 1829, 2 vols )