Experiencing the Language of Ian Hamilton Finlay's Poetry

Examines the language and linguistic style of Scottish poet, Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006)

• Applies contemporary cognitive-linguistic theories to avant-garde poetry
• Traces Finlay’s creative trajectory from his early prose fiction to his world-renowned garden, Little Sparta
• Redefines our understanding of literary reception by demonstrating how situated poetic encounters extend human cognition beyond the text and into the physical landscape

Ian Hamilton Finlay is now recognised as one of the most important figures in Scottish literary history and as a world-leader in the concrete poetry movement. While he considered himself first and foremost a poet throughout his life, his work spans a far broader array of writing, visual art and gardening. In this book, Joanna Gavins presents a rigorous exploration of the linguistic and cognitive dimensions of Finlay’s work, investigating what the poet termed the ‘being of language’.

Spanning Finlay’s diverse and prolific career, the text provides a critical framework for understanding the poet’s varied creative outputs, from his earliest writings to the development of his world-renowned garden at Little Sparta in the Pentland Hills. An examination of the complex intersections between text, space, embodiment and cognition, this book moves beyond conventional analysis to explore how Finlay’s language actively extends the mind into the physical landscape, transforming reading into a fundamentally context-dependent conceptual and physical experience.