ABSTRACT
Christopher Murray Grieve was born in Langholm on 11 August 1892 and his alter ego Hugh MacDiarmid was buried in Langholm on 13 September 1978. The story of MacDiarmid's poetry begins in Langholm though it certainly does not end there. Langholm did not only feature in his poetry as a source of local colour or as a point of reference. Since the uniqueness of the philosophically selfconscious individual impressed MacDiarmid he felt it was his poetic duty to be as singular as possible. MacDiarmid was proud of the consistency of his contradictions. In 1972, looking back over his life without any of the usual Grand Old Mannerisms, he referred pugnaciously to his paradoxical nature. Since the evolutionary ideal is to produce intellectual supermen, MacDiarmid frequently appeals to the future or addresses his intellectual equals or settles for speaking to himself.
