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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
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 …
The Cultural Context Of The Aberdeen Candlemas Play, Roderick J. Lyall
The Cultural Context Of The Aberdeen Candlemas Play, Roderick J. Lyall
Studies in Scottish Literature
Among the lost plays of medieval Scotland the Aberdeen Candlemas play is one of the most intriguing. Our knowledge of its content derives principally from two lists, dating from 1442 and 1505, dividing the roles between the burgh’s various gilds, although the fact that there was some form of dramatic element rather than merely a procession appears to be confirmed by the discovery in the Dean of Guild’s accounts for 1470-71 of a payment of 16d. to “ye men ye maid scafald to ye candilmes play.” This paper focuses on the presence in the cast of The Three Kings of …
Robert Burns’S Life On The Stage: A Bibliography Of Dramatic Works, 1842–2019, Thomas Keith
Robert Burns’S Life On The Stage: A Bibliography Of Dramatic Works, 1842–2019, Thomas Keith
Studies in Scottish Literature
This article traces the changing history of how the Scottish poet Robert Burns has been portrayed on stage, both in Scotland and elsewhere, discussing the the issues playwrights have faced and some of the approaches they have used, and provides an annotated chronological bibliography of ninety plays about Burns's life written or first staged between 1842 and 2019, with information on first known performance and on any published versions or known manuscript or typescript, and with brief notes where information is available on the style of the play and critical reaction.
Mapping Changes To The Songs In The Gentle Shepherd, 1725-1788, Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland
Mapping Changes To The Songs In The Gentle Shepherd, 1725-1788, Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the varying ways in which the songs in Allan Ramsay's ballad-opera The Gentle Shepherd were published between the 170s and the 1780s, noting variation in how particular songs were titled, in which songs were included and how they were placed within the dramatic text, in which tunes were used for which song-texts, and in how words were related to music in editions providing both. The discussion is supported by extensive tables and lists of 18th century Ramsay editions, and illustrated with transcriptions of the music in two editions. Concludes that the addition of the music in later editions served …
'Some Few Miles From Edinburgh': Commemorating The Scenes Of The Gentle Shepherd In Ramsay Country, Craig Lamont
'Some Few Miles From Edinburgh': Commemorating The Scenes Of The Gentle Shepherd In Ramsay Country, Craig Lamont
Studies in Scottish Literature
Traces the history of Ramsay commemoration, from the obelisk at Penicuik with an inscription from 1759 onwards, and successive attempts to identify actual settings for scenes and incidents in his ballad opera The Gentle Shepherd, in illustrations (notably by David Allan for the Foulis edition of 1788), other editions and memoirs, and competing contributions by the ministers of rival parishes to the Statistical Account of Scotland, giving particular attention to the roles in the "battle over Ramsay country" of two local landowners, Alexander Fraser Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee) and Robert Brown of Newhall; providing maps and illustrations to clarify …
Introduction: Allan Ramsay's Future, Murray Pittock, Craig Lamont
Introduction: Allan Ramsay's Future, Murray Pittock, Craig Lamont
Studies in Scottish Literature
Presents an overview of the new AHRC-funded edition of the Collected Works of Allan Ramsay, and of related recent scholarly and community activity in relation to Ramsay's public recognition and heritage, both in the Pentlands area south of Edinburgh, near Penicuik and Carlops, and more broadly in Scottish literary history, specifically in relation to the origins of Scottish Romanticism.
Introduction: A Glorious Phantom: Insurrections In Scottish Literature, Tony Jarrells
Introduction: A Glorious Phantom: Insurrections In Scottish Literature, Tony Jarrells
Studies in Scottish Literature
Introduces the SSL symposium on Insurrections by tracing themes from James Kelman's play Hardie and Baird: the Last Days (1978), about the Scottish Insurrection of 1820.
Joe Corrie’S In Time O’ Strife, The General Strike Of 1926, And The Impasse Of Insurgent Masculinity, Paul Malgrati
Joe Corrie’S In Time O’ Strife, The General Strike Of 1926, And The Impasse Of Insurgent Masculinity, Paul Malgrati
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the ex-miner and labour journalist Joe Corrie's three-act play In Time o’ Strife, set in West Fife ("the most significant working-class play written about the 1926 General Strike"), setting it in the context of Corrie's writing career, and exploring the psychological, familial, and political conflicts, including conflicts of gender roles, which it dramatizes.
Immigrant Communities, Cultural Conflicts, And Intermarriage In Ann Marie Di Mambro's Tally's Blood, Ian Brown
Immigrant Communities, Cultural Conflicts, And Intermarriage In Ann Marie Di Mambro's Tally's Blood, Ian Brown
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the stage history, structure and themes of Anne Marie Di Mambro’s play Tally’s Blood (1990), especially in terms of the cultural stresses on Italian immigrant families in Scotland in the 1930s and the impact on them of the Second World War.
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 …
Archibald Pitcairne’S The Phanaticks, Ed. John Macqueen, Murray Pittock
Archibald Pitcairne’S The Phanaticks, Ed. John Macqueen, Murray Pittock
Studies in Scottish Literature
Review of the first scholarly edition of a satirical play The Phanaticks (1691) [previously titled "The Assembly"] by the Scottish Jacobite poet and physician Dr. Archibald Pitcairne (1652-1713).
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.
The Popular Voice In Sir David Lyndsay's Satire Of The Thrie Estaitis, Greg Walker
The Popular Voice In Sir David Lyndsay's Satire Of The Thrie Estaitis, Greg Walker
Studies in Scottish Literature
Analyzes the representation of the Scottish people in the 16th century Scottish drama A Satire of the Thrie Estaitis by Sir David Lyndsay [or Lindsay] (1490-1555), through the figure of the Pauper or Poor Man in the first version (the 1540 interlude performed at Linlithgow), and the character of John of the Commonwealth in the two fuller versions (at Cupar in 1552 and Edinburgh in 1554). Distinguishes Lyndsay's Pauper from equivalent figures in plays by John Bale and Nicholas Udall, and argues (by contrast with Tyrone Guthrie's famous 1948 Edinburgh festival production) that John of the Commonwealth is less a …