The Pilgrims of the Sun

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The Pilgrims of the Sun is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in December 1814, dated 1815. It consists of four cantos, totalling somewhat less than 2000 lines. In similar vein to 'Kilmeny' in The Queen's Wake (1813), it tells of a young woman's journey to an ideal world and her return to Earth.

Contents

Background

After completing his Highland poem Mador of the Moor in February 1814, Hogg conceived the idea of 'a volume of romantic poems, to be entitled "Midsummer Night Dreams".' [1] The first poem he composed for this project was Connel of Dee, in which a shepherd's social aspirations come to an end when he has a nightmare of a hellish marriage and violent death. Hogg then completed a second poem in three weeks, The Pilgrims of the Sun, offering a contrasting vision of a journey to a heavenly world. [2] A short poem 'Superstition' was also intended for Midsummer Night Dreams, but when James Park of Greenock read Hogg's recent poems in manuscript and judged The Pilgrims of the Sun to be the best, it was decided to publish The Pilgrims separately (with 'Superstition'), leap-frogging Mador of the Moor. [3] Connel of Dee first appeared in Winter Evening Tales (1820). [4]

Editions

The Pilgrims of the Sun; A Poem. By James Hogg, Author of the Queen's Wake, &c. appeared in Edinburgh on 12 December 1814, with the date 1815 and the publishers given as 'London: Printed for John Murray, 50, Albemarle Street: and William Blackwood, South Bridge Street, Edinburgh'. However, Murray was disappointed when he read the entire poem, and when it appeared in London in January 1815 the publication details had been changed to 'Edinburgh: Printed for William Blackwood, South Bridge Street; and sold by J. Murray, London'. [5] The volume also contained 'Superstition'. The two poems were included, with Connel of Dee and other poems, in a revived Midsummer Night Dreams in the second volume of Hogg's Poetical Works published in 1822 by 'Archibald Constable & Co. Edinburgh; and Hurst, Robinson & Co. London'. [6]

A critical edition of The Pilgrims of the Sun is included in James Hogg, Midsummer Night Dreams and Related Poems, edited by the late Jill Rubenstein and completed by Gillian Hughes with Meiko O'Halloran, which appeared in 2008 as Volume 24 in the Stirling/South Carolina Research Edition of The Complete Works of James Hogg published by Edinburgh University Press.

Summary

Part First (in ballad stanzas): Mary Lee of Carelha' is transported through space by a young spirit called Cela to a 'blest land of love and truth' close to the Sun.

Part Second (in blank verse): Reaching the Sun itself, Cela and Mary pass close to God's pavilion, encompassed by adoring hosts, and Cela explains that a passing comet is an obsolete world cut adrift by God.

Part Third (in heroic couplets): Cela and Mary visit a series of worlds, notably those of lovers and warriors, before he escorts her back to Earth where it transpires that her widowed mother and friends are mourning her death.

Part Fourth (in heroic couplets): Mary is restored to life and marries Hugo of Norroway, a bard who reminds her of Cela. The narrator observes that after their deaths in old age their presence has continued to be felt spiritually, but to his regret Mary has not appeared to him.

Reception

The reviews of The Pilgrims of the Sun were broadly favourable. Hogg was particularly gratified by the approval of the theologically inclined Eclectic Review , which compared him favourably with Scott and Byron. [7] His descriptive powers were praised, and his fancy was found remarkable, if tending to the wild; but there were reservations about the changes in metre. [8]

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Mador of the Moor is a narrative poem by James Hogg, first published in 1816. Consisting of an Introduction, five cantos, and a Conclusion, it runs to more than two thousand lines, mostly in the Spenserian stanza. Set in late medieval Scotland, it tells of the seduction of a young maiden by a charismatic minstrel and her journey to Stirling in search of him, leading to the revelation that he is the king and finally to their marriage and the christening of their son.

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Queen Hynde (1825) is an epic poem in six cantos by James Hogg. Set in western Scotland in the sixth century, it tells the story of the defeat of an invading Norwegian army by forces loyal to Queen Hynde, advised by Columba, and of the winning of her hand by the legitimate claimant of the throne Eiden. It is mostly in octosyllabic couplets.

A Queer Book (1832) is a collections of 26 poems, mostly short narratives, by James Hogg, all but two of which had been previously published, more than half of them in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Tales of the Wars of Montrose is a set of six fictional narratives by James Hogg published in 1835. Each of them centres on the fortunes of an individual during the civil conflict of the 1640s in Scotland.

The Shepherd's Calendar (1829) is a collection by James Hogg of 21 articles, most of which had appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine since 1819. They are set in, or deal with aspects of, the Scottish Borders, in particular Hogg's native Ettrick Forest.

A Series of Lay Sermons is a set of eleven moral and religious discourses by James Hogg published in 1834.

Scottish Pastorals (1801), containing five poems and two songs, was the first book published by James Hogg.

The Brownie of Bodsbeck (1818) is the first (short) novel by James Hogg. Set in the Scottish Borders in 1685 it presents a sympathetic picture of the persecuted Covenanters and a harsh view of the Royalists led by Clavers (Claverhouse). It draws extensively on local superstitions.

References

  1. ↑ 'Memoir of the Author's Life', in James Hogg, Altrive Tales, ed. Gillian Hughes (Edinburgh, 2003), 35.
  2. ↑ James Hogg, Midsummer Night Dreams and Related Poems, ed. Jill Rubenstein, Gillian Hughes, and Meiko O'Halloran (Edinburgh, 2008), xiv.
  3. ↑ Rubenstein, op. cit., 148; Hughes, op. cit., 35‒36.
  4. ↑ James Hogg, Winter Evening Tales Collected Among the Cottagers in the South of Scotland, ed. Ian Duncan (Edinburgh, 2002), 410‒25.
  5. ↑ Rubenstein, op. cit., xxiv‒xxvii.
  6. ↑ Rubenstein, op. cit., xxxii‒xxxv.
  7. ↑ Hughes, op. cit., 39.
  8. ↑ For a survey of the reviews, see Rubenstein, op. cit., lxvi‒lxviii.
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