Young, Douglas

(1913-1973)

   Soon after birth his mother took him from Edinburgh to India, where his father was employed by a Dundee jute firm. From the age of eight he was educated at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, then at the universities of St. Andrews and Oxford. In 1938 he became assistant professor of Greek at Aberdeen University and taught classics at St. Andrews University. Deeply committed to Scottish nationalism (he was chairman of the Scottish National Party 1942-1945), he spent two terms in prison for refusing conscription, arguing that Westminster did not have the right to impose conscription on Scotland. His first collection of poems-Antran Ballads (1943)-contains translations of verse from ten languages into English and Scots, as well as translations from the Gaelic of Sorley Maclean and George Campbell Hay (see entries). In 1963 he accepted the chair of classics at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, and from 1970 until his death he worked at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Some of his poems: "Last Lauch [laugh]," "The Ballant o' the Laird's Bath," "The Frogs," "The Kirkyaird by the Sea," "The Shepherd's Dochter," "Winter Homily on the Calton Hill."

   Sources: A Book of Scottish Verse. Maurice Lindsay and R.L. Mackie, eds. St. Martin's Press, 1983. Biography of Douglas Young: Literary Encyclopedia (http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5481). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Classical Verse in Translation. Adrian Poole and Jeremy Maule, eds. 1995. The Oxford Book of Verse in English Translation. Charles Tomlinson, ed. Oxford University Press, 1980.