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The Ghost Of John Nisbet: Hugh Macdiarmid’S First Published Work, Alan Riach
The Ghost Of John Nisbet: Hugh Macdiarmid’S First Published Work, Alan Riach
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the first published item, a short play, signed with the name 'Hugh M'acDiamid', and sets in its biographical and historical context just after the First World War and in the literary context of 1922 and international modernism, in 1922, viewing it as 'an encapsulation of its moment, and most importantly as an elegiac tribute to a friend,' arguing that 'Performing "Nisbet" as a play intimates the drama of fractured modernist selfhood implicit in the written text,' and concluding that it should be seen 'in the whole national context of Scotland finding a way towards a reconstruction of itself, a …
Macdiarmid The Spaceman: Extraterrestrial Space In Hugh Macdiarmid’S Poetry From Sangschaw To A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle, Michael H. Whitworth
Macdiarmid The Spaceman: Extraterrestrial Space In Hugh Macdiarmid’S Poetry From Sangschaw To A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle, Michael H. Whitworth
Studies in Scottish Literature
Looking at Hugh MacDiarmid’s Sangschaw (1925), Penny Wheep (1926), and A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926), this article considers MacDiarmid’s use of science, particularly astronomy, in the 1920s. It traces known and possible sources for his scientific knowledge in books and periodicals, especially The New Age. It examines the image of light travelling through space, found in popular astronomy works by Felix Eberty and Camille Flammarion. It also compares his conception of the earth as a moving object in space with that found in poems by Thomas Hardy.
‘To “Meddle Wi’ The Thistle”’: C. M. Grieve’S Scottish Chapbook, The Little Magazine, And The Dilemmas Of Scottish Modernism, Scott Lyall
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines C. M. Grieve’s (Hugh MacDiarmid’s) most important journal enterprise, The Scottish Chapbook, which critics have assumed marks the beginning of a modernist Scottish renaissance. Against this view, this article argues that the range of contributions to the Chapbook were generally not modernist in their formal characteristics, many recalling the Victorian or fin-de-siècle periods. While the Chapbook’s brief lifespan (1922–23) was typical for modernist little magazines, the dilemmas encountered by Grieve’s periodical – restricted finances, lack of avant-garde contributors – are explained here as a side-effect of ‘localist modernism’, a concept defined by Eric B. White.
The Natural-Supernatural Solway, Fiona Stafford
The Natural-Supernatural Solway, Fiona Stafford
Studies in Scottish Literature
Explores, through discussion of Burns's letters from Annan Water on the Solway, and in his poems, Burns's treatment of the supernatural, specifically his references to treatment of Kelpies, the mythical Scottish waterhorses seen in the destructive force of Solway tides and storms, carrying this forward to the work of Allan Cunningham, including his story “Judith Macrone, the Prophetess” (1821) and his poem "The Mermaid of Galloway" (1810).
'Some Pastoral Improvement' In The Gentle Shepherd: Mediation, Remediation, And Minority, Steve Newman
'Some Pastoral Improvement' In The Gentle Shepherd: Mediation, Remediation, And Minority, Steve Newman
Studies in Scottish Literature
This essay shows how in The Gentle Shepherd Allan Ramsay engages in the complex work of "pastoral improvement" on an individual and national scale and foresees--to a point--how his work will be received in the decades and even centuries to come. After situating his work within the uprising of the Galloway Levellers, pastoral, and the early work of agricultural improvement, I consider how the concept of improvement shapes the reception of his work in the Linley-Tickell production of the 1780s--including a surprising appearance from the Shakespearean forger, William Henry Ireland--and the key role The Gentle Shepherd plays in "The Young …
The King And The People In Burns And Lady Nairne, With A Coda On Jane Austen’S Favorite Burns Song, Carol Mcguirk
The King And The People In Burns And Lady Nairne, With A Coda On Jane Austen’S Favorite Burns Song, Carol Mcguirk
Studies in Scottish Literature
Explores the treatment of the monarchy, and the Jacobite song tradition, in Robert Burns (who "refuses political silence yet ... embraces indirection, even contradiction") and Caroline Oliphant, Lady Nairne (whose "lyrics highlight Scottish solidarity... offering her readers [and the performers of her songs] an immersion experience in being Jacobite"), with discussion also of Jane Austen's favourite Burns song "“Their Groves of Sweet Myrtle,” suggesting that this is echoed in Austen's Emma.
The Reputation Of David Gray, David Mcvey
The Reputation Of David Gray, David Mcvey
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses responses to the poetry, including the death, of the Scottish poet David Gray (1838-1861), primarily with reference to his longer poem The Luggie and his sonnet sequence In The Shadows, exploring the extent to which Gray himself consciously constructed a reputation around his own imminent death from TB, through reference to the career and death of earlier sufferers, including Michael Bruce, Robert Pollock, and John Keats.
Writing The Highland Tour: A Story Of A Deeply Troubling Kind, Andrew Hook
Writing The Highland Tour: A Story Of A Deeply Troubling Kind, Andrew Hook
Studies in Scottish Literature
Review and discussion of Nigel Leask, Stepping Westward: Writing the Highland Tour c.1720-1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), from Burt and Pennant to Dr Johnson, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and John Keats, praising the book as timely, and suggesting that in discussing attitudes to the people of the Scottish Highlands it tells "a story of a deeply troubling kind."
Sorley Maclean's Other Clearance Poems, Petra Johana Poncarová
Sorley Maclean's Other Clearance Poems, Petra Johana Poncarová
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the treatment of the Highland Clearances, specifically the clearances from his home-island of Raasay, in the work of the Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean (Somhairle MacGill-Eain, 1911-1996), not only in his best-known Clearance poem "Hallaig," but in his prose writings, his major early sequence An Cuilithionn (1939, but not fully published till 2011), and several important shorter poems, “Am Putan Airgid” (“The Silver Button”), “‘Tha na beanntan gun bhruidhinn,’” and (more fully) “Sgreapadal.”
'Rebellious Highlanders': The Reception Of Corsica In The Edinburgh Periodical Press, 1730-1800, Rhona Brown
'Rebellious Highlanders': The Reception Of Corsica In The Edinburgh Periodical Press, 1730-1800, Rhona Brown
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the way Scottish periodicals, especially the Weekly Magazine and the Caledonian Mercury, reported and discussed the nationalist resistance in Corsica against first Genoese and then French rule; recalibrates the role of James Boswell in shaping Scottish opinion about Corsica, especially in his Account of Corsica (1768); notes the parallels made by Scottish commentators between the Corsican resistance under Pascal Paoli and the Scottish highlands, especially the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745; and suggests the value of looking at the distinctive responses of Scottish periodicals, not just the print networks based on London.
Recovering The Reformation Heritage In George Mackay Brown's Greenvoe, Richard Rankin Russell
Recovering The Reformation Heritage In George Mackay Brown's Greenvoe, Richard Rankin Russell
Studies in Scottish Literature
Suggests that attitudes to Presbyterianism and the Scottish Kirk in much 20th century Scottish literary criticism have been too negative, and explores the religious heritage and selected writings of the Orcadian poet and novelist George Mackay Brown (1921-1996), a Catholic convert, to argue that Brown's best-known novel, Greenvoe (1972), draws not only on Catholic, and older pagan, symbolism, but also on aspects of the Reformed or Calvinist tradition.
Ossianic Telegraphy: Bardic Networks And Imperial Relays, Eric Gidal
Ossianic Telegraphy: Bardic Networks And Imperial Relays, Eric Gidal
Studies in Scottish Literature
Relates James Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760) and other Ossianic poems to evolving Scottish networks of commerce and communication, especially commercial telegraphy and the postal system, and posits associations also with comments in Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence and Theory of Moral Sentiments, to suggest that Macpherson's remediation of oral poetry asserted ideas of authorial identity and readership as "relays" in a new imperial network.
John Byrne's The Slab Boys: Technicolored Hell-Hole In A Town Called Malice, William Donaldson
John Byrne's The Slab Boys: Technicolored Hell-Hole In A Town Called Malice, William Donaldson
Studies in Scottish Literature
Presents a detailed discussion and appreciation of the Slab Boys tetralogy, a sequence of four plays by the Scottish playwright and painter John Byrne, beginning with The Slab Boys (1978), focused on a group of apprentices in the color-mixing room of a Paisley carpet-factory in the 1950s, and then tracing the divergence of their lives through three later plays, The Loveliest Night of the Year (1979, later titled Cuttin' A Rug), Still Life (1982), and Nova Scotia (2008); examines Byrne's characterization, "excoriatingly destructive wit," and "rambunctiously demotic language"; analyzes the tetralogy's continuing major themes of the relation between art …
Tollerators And Con-Tollerators (1703) And Archibald Pitcairne: Text, Background And Authorship, John Macqueen
Tollerators And Con-Tollerators (1703) And Archibald Pitcairne: Text, Background And Authorship, John Macqueen
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the historical background and theatrical characteristics of a short satirical play set in Edinburgh in 1703, giving the background to the Scottish Parliament's divisions over (and presbyterian hostility to) an act to give religious toleration to Episcopalian ministers; argues that the most probable author is the Jacobite poet and playwright Dr. Archibald Pitcairne (1652-1713); and presents the first modern annotated text of the play.
For "The Prosperity Of Scotland": Mediating National Improvement In The Scots Magazine, 1739-49, Alex Benchimol
For "The Prosperity Of Scotland": Mediating National Improvement In The Scots Magazine, 1739-49, Alex Benchimol
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the early years the the Scots Magazine, founded in Edinburgh in 1739, examining the aims of its publishers, and the development of its political and economic views before and after the Jacobite Rising of 1745-46, in light of contemporary Scottish ideas of social and economic improvement.
"And The Roadside Fire": Portrayals Of Home Through National Song In Stevenson's Scottish Adventures, Christy Danelle Di Frances
"And The Roadside Fire": Portrayals Of Home Through National Song In Stevenson's Scottish Adventures, Christy Danelle Di Frances
Studies in Scottish Literature
This article considers allusions to popular Scottish song in Stevenson’s work, especially in Kidnapped, to interrogate Stevenson’s broader configuration of home, as both personal and engaged with the Scottish national consciousness, exploring how he preserves home within his modern adventure aesthetic through reference to popular Scottish song, ballads and folk songs.
Drunkenness And Ambition In Early Seventeenth-Century Scottish Literature, Sally Mapstone
Drunkenness And Ambition In Early Seventeenth-Century Scottish Literature, Sally Mapstone
Studies in Scottish Literature
No abstract provided.
Holtis Hair: Tracking A Phrase Through Middle Scots Poetry, David Parkinson
Holtis Hair: Tracking A Phrase Through Middle Scots Poetry, David Parkinson
Studies in Scottish Literature
No abstract provided.