The work of the Makar of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was in part marked out by an adoption in
vernacular languages of the new and greater variety in
metrics and
prosody current across Europe after the influence of such figures as
Dante and
Petrarch and similar to the route which Chaucer followed in England. Their work is usually distinguished from the work of earlier Scottish writers such as
Barbour and
Wyntoun who wrote
romance and
chronicle verse in octosyllabic couplets and it also perhaps marked something of a departure from the medieval
alliterative or
troubador traditions; but one characteristic of poetry by the Makars is that features from all of these various traditions, such as strong alliteration and swift narration, continued to be a distinctive influence. ; built in the century of the makars, the famed intricacy of its carving shares much in spirit with the aureation in their language. The first of the Makars proper in this sense, although perhaps the least Scots due to his education predominantly in captivity at the English court in
London, is generally taken to be
James I (1394–1437) the likely author of the
Kingis Quair. Apart from other principal figures already named, writing by makars such as
Richard Holland,
Blind Hary and
Walter Kennedy also survives along with evidence that suggests the existence of a substantial body of lost work. The quality of extant work generally, both minor and major, demonstrates a thriving poetic tradition in Scotland throughout the period.
Henryson, who is generally seen today as one of the foremost makars, is not known to have been a
court poet, but the Royal Palace of
Dunfermline, the city in which he was based, was one of the residences of the
Stewart court. A high point in cultural patronage was the Renaissance Court of
James IV (1488–1513) now principally associated in literary terms with
William Dunbar. The pinnacle in writing from this time was in fact Douglas's
Eneados (1513), the first full and faithful translation of an important work of classical antiquity into any
Anglic language. Douglas is one of the first authors to explicitly identify his language as
Scottis. This was also the period when use of Scots in poetry was at its most richly and successfully aureate. Dunbar's
Lament for the Makaris (c.1505) contains a
leet of makars, not exclusively Scottish, some of whom are now only known through his mention, further indicative of the wider extent to the tradition. Qualities in verse especially prized by many of these writers included the combination of skilful artifice with natural diction, concision and quickness () of expression. For example, Dunbar praises his peer,
Merseir in
The Lament (ll.74-5) as one :... :"That did in love so lively write, So short so quick, of sentence high..." Some of the Makars, such as Dunbar, also featured an increasing incorporation of Latinate terms into Scots prosody, or
aureation, heightening the creative tensions between the ornate and the natural in
poetic diction. The new plane of achievement set by Douglas in
epic and
translation was not followed up in the subsequent century, but later makars, such as
David Lyndsay, still drew strongly on the work of fifteenth and early sixteenth century exponents. This influence can be traced right through to
Alexander Scott and the various members of the
Castalian Band in the Scottish court of
James VI (1567–1603) which included
Alexander Montgomerie and, once again, the king himself. The king composed a treatise, the
Reulis and Cautelis (1584), which proposed a formalisation of Scottish prosody and consciously strove to identify what was distinctive in the Scots tradition. The removal of the Court to London under James after 1603 is usually regarded as marking the eclipse of the distinctively Scottish tradition of poetry initiated by the Makars, but figures such as
William Drummond might loosely be seen as forming a continuation into the seventeenth century. The Makars have often been referred to by literary critics as
Scots Chaucerians. While Chaucer's influence on fifteenth-century Scottish literature was certainly important, the makars drew strongly on a native tradition predating Chaucer, exemplified by Barbour, as well as the courtly literature of France. In the more general application of the term which is current today the word can be applied to poets of the Scots revival in the eighteenth century, such as
Allan Ramsay and
Robert Fergusson. In recent times, other examples of poets that have seemed to particularly exemplify the traditions of the makars have included
Robert Garioch,
Sydney Goodsir Smith,
George Campbell Hay and
Norman MacCaig among many others. ==Modern usage==