The narrator of this poem asks God why, in this “huge ineducable / heterogeneous hotch and rabble,” he is “condemned to squabble.” For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this long poem written in Scots. The poet’s Marxist-Leninist views may have informed his responses to contemporary events like the 1926 United Kingdom general strike in sections of this poem.
ANSWER: “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”
[10m] This man, who is the subject of a poem by Blind Harry, is among the historical figures whom the narrator of Hugh MacDiarmid’s (“muck-DER-mid’s”) “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle” sees upon the turning of the “weary wheel.”
ANSWER: William Wallace [or Uilleam Uallas or Weelum Wallace; accept The Wallace or The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace]
[10e] The narrator also makes repeated references to this Robert Burns poem that asks “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?”
ANSWER: “Auld Lang Syne”
<British Literature>