makar

mak·ar (mäʹkər, māʹ-) n. Chiefly Scots

A poet.

  [Middle English, variant of maker, maker, poet.]

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▪ Scottish literature

also spelled  Maker (Scottish: “maker,” or “poet”),  plural  Makaris, or Makeris,  also called  Scottish Chaucerian,  

      any of the Scottish courtly poets who flourished from about 1425 to 1550. The best known are Robert Henryson (Henryson, Robert), William Dunbar (Dunbar, William), Gavin Douglas (Douglas, Gawin, Bishop of Dunkeld), and Sir David Lyndsay; (Lyndsay, Sir David) the group is sometimes expanded to include James I of Scotland and Harry The Minstrel, or Blind Harry.

      Because Geoffrey Chaucer (Chaucer, Geoffrey) was their acknowledged master and they often employed his verse forms and themes, the makaris are usually called “Scottish Chaucerians”; but actually they are a product of more than one tradition. Chaucerian influence is apparent in their courtly romances and dream allegories, yet even these display a distinctive “aureate” style, a language richly ornamented by polysyllabic Latinate words.

      In addition, the makaris used different styles for different types of poems. The language that they used in their poems ranges from courtly aureate English, to mixtures of English and Scots, to the broadest Scots vernacular, as their subjects range from moral allegory to everyday realism, flyting (abuse), or grotesquely comic Celtic fantasy.

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