Alexander Montgomerie, born about 1545 and dead by August 1598, occupies a singular position in Scottish literary history: he was at once court poet, soldier, religious dissenter, satirist, lyricist, and maker of one of the most enduring allegorical poems in the Scots language. His career unfolded during the reign of James VI of Scotland, before that king inherited the English throne as James I, and it reflects the p…
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 Montgomerie
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.
Strongly related
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 Montgomerie
Robert Cunninghame-Graham
1545
1797
Their lives did not overlap.
137 years separate the earlier death from the later birth.
On the map
About 76 km separate Ayrshire, Scotland from Gartmore, Perthshire, Scotland. Shared ground: United Kingdom.
Alexander Montgomerie
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 Montgomerie: scottish, court poet, james vi, flyting betwixt montgomerie and polwart, the cherrie and the slae, ayrshire, catholic, protestant reformation. 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 Montgomerie
Robert Cunninghame-Graham
1769
Return to Scotland
Emotional landscapes
Alexander Montgomerie: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder. Robert Cunninghame-Graham: Longing, Tenderness, Joy.