SOURCE: "Poetry and the Unsayable: Edwin Muir's Conception of the Powers and Limitations of Poetic Speech," in Studies in Scottish Literature, Vol. XVII, 1982, pp. 23-38.

In the following essay, Bouson discusses Muir's attempts to elucidate through poetry such fundamental human experiences as the passage of time and the loss of innocence.

Often described as a visionary,¹ Edwin Muir wrote under necessity as he attempted to convey his inner world of memories, dreams, and visions. Having apprehended in isolated, timeless moments a transcendental framework underlying the structure of human experience, Muir was obsessed not only with time but with the felt tension between time and the timeless; and hence, he became a poet not only of the journey through time and place but also a poet who tried to convey the timeless vision apprehended at the core of human experience. Like all those who attempt to communicate the visionary...