Alexander Scott, born about 1525 and probably dead about 1584, occupies an intriguing place in the history of Scottish poetry: he is neither as monumental a figure as William Dunbar nor as internationally famous as Robert Burns, yet his surviving work gives him a distinctive and memorable voice among the later Scottish makars. He wrote at a moment when older medieval literary customs were being tested by religious re…
Compare Poets
Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Poet A
Alexander Scott
Poet B
Robert Cunninghame-Graham
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 75%
Blended 75%
Swap sides
Another related pair
Robert Cunninghame-Graham, later more commonly styled Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham of Gartmore and Finlaystone, was born in 1735 and died at Gartmore on 11 December 1797. He is remembered, if at all, by most readers for a single durable lyric, “If Doughty Deeds My Lady Please,” a poem whose compact music and courtly ardour secured it a place in Victorian anthologies and in the repertory of composers. Yet the poe…
“The greatest luxury in life is to be able to do what you like, when you like, and how you like.”
In time
Alexander Scott
Robert Cunninghame-Graham
1525
1797
Their lives did not overlap.
151 years separate the earlier death from the later birth.
On the map
About 211 km separate Lothian, Scotland from Gartmore, Perthshire, Scotland. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
Alexander Scott
Robert Cunninghame-Graham
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
From the biographies
scottish
Alexander Scott: scottish makar, mary queen of scots, new year gift, older scots, rough wooing, battle of pinkie, courtly love, edinburgh. Robert Cunninghame-Graham: scottish laird, jamaica, if doughty deeds my lady please, university of glasgow, receiver-general of taxes, anne taylor, simon taylor, whig.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
Alexander Scott
1550
Move to Edinburgh
Robert Cunninghame-Graham
1769
Return to Scotland
Emotional landscapes
Alexander Scott: Sorrow, Despair, Longing. Robert Cunninghame-Graham: Longing, Tenderness, Joy.