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Chitterin’ Lichts: Text And Intertext In Sangschaw And Penny Wheep, Patrick Crotty
Chitterin’ Lichts: Text And Intertext In Sangschaw And Penny Wheep, Patrick Crotty
Studies in Scottish Literature
The essay takes a new look at an old subject, the role of dictionaries in Hugh MacDiarmid’s so-called ‘early lyrics’. While demonstrating that the poet’s exploration of the lexicographical remains of Scots was more thorough-going and systematic than previous accounts have suggested, it positions his recourse to dictionaries in the intertextual habit that links the lyrics both to the English sonnets and prose sketches of the young Christopher Grieve and the encyclopaedic long poems to which MacDiarmid turned after abandoning Scots in the 1930s. The article attends in particular to the wide-angle allusiveness of Sangschaw and Penny Wheep, arguing that …
‘No Further From The “Centre Of Things”’: Peripheral Citation In Hugh Macdiarmid’S In Memoriam James Joyce, James Benstead
‘No Further From The “Centre Of Things”’: Peripheral Citation In Hugh Macdiarmid’S In Memoriam James Joyce, James Benstead
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines Hugh MacDiarmid’s “citational poetics” – that is, his practice of selecting material from a wide range of pre-existing texts, before transforming that material and then combining it in his own work, often without attribution – and shows how reading MacDiarmid’s long 1955 poem In Memoriam James Joyce with reference to this practice places that text within the lineage of “provincial modernism” identified by Robert Crawford.
The Real Christopher: Sleights Of Text And Mind Behind The Persona Of Hugh Macdiarmid, Alexander Linklater
The Real Christopher: Sleights Of Text And Mind Behind The Persona Of Hugh Macdiarmid, Alexander Linklater
Studies in Scottish Literature
Argues that it was the persona of Hugh MacDiarmid, as much as his poetry, which brought about the Scottish Literary Renaissance of the 1920s, but that behind the extravagant personality lay an obscure biographical puzzle. Christopher Murray Grieve possessed little personal resemblance to his pseudonymous self and even less interest in what motivated him to create such an antagonist. In this essay, the author of a new life of MacDiarmid explores how the dominant figure of 20th century Scottish literature composed himself out of found texts, psychological misdirection and confected autobiography.
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.
Provincialising Macdiarmid: Decolonisation And Scottish Literary History, Alex Thomson
Provincialising Macdiarmid: Decolonisation And Scottish Literary History, Alex Thomson
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the development of MacDiarmid's aesthetic and political views, in light of decolonial theory and criticism, as showing the 'inexorable and exigent doubling of Scotland with Empire', arguing that though MacDiarmid has been central to the construction of a postcolonial Scottish literary history, free from historical anxiety, a decolonial approach unsettles the narrative of Scotttish exceptionalism and challenges the political romanticism associated with the aesthetic construction of the national, endorsed by MacDiarmid and continued by recent cultural and literary histories [Ed.] .
Introduction: Hugh Macdiarmid At 100, Scott Lyall
Introduction: Hugh Macdiarmid At 100, Scott Lyall
Studies in Scottish Literature
Explains the background for this special issue, Hugh MacDiarmid at 100, in the Scottish Revival Network’s conference in August 2022, which marked the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s first appearance in print under that name in The Scottish Chapbook in August 1922, and then, before summarizing the themes of each essay, discusses ways in which MacDiarmid’s legacy and reputation have become central to the Scottish literary canon but somewhat marginal to canonical modernism,
‘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.
Linguistic Islands: Archipelagic Perspectives In Hugh Macdiarmid’S ‘Vision Of World Language’, Fiona Paterson
Linguistic Islands: Archipelagic Perspectives In Hugh Macdiarmid’S ‘Vision Of World Language’, Fiona Paterson
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the impact of an archipelagic perspective upon Hugh MacDiarmid’s ‘vision of world language’ as set forth in the 1955 poem In Memoriam James Joyce. Informed by his travels to Scottish islands, documented in The Islands of Scotland (1939), and his engagements with Norn in Shetland, MacDiarmid’s vision is both expansive and particular, characterised by its decentralised plurality, and driven by an attempt to capture both simultaneity and progressivism.
Liz Lochhead And The Fairies: Context And Influence In Grimm Sisters And Dreaming Frankenstein, William Donaldson
Liz Lochhead And The Fairies: Context And Influence In Grimm Sisters And Dreaming Frankenstein, William Donaldson
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the Scottish poet Liz Lochhead's period of North American travel and her response to American second-wave feminist poetics, particularly to the anthology No More Masks! (1973) and the poetry of Adrienne Rich and Anne Sexton, the treatment of myth by J.G. Frazer and Robert Graves, and the perspective on Scottish fairy tales offered by folklorists, to explore Lochhead's creative reworking of both fairy tale and classical myth in her collections Grimm Sisters (1981) and Dreaming Frankenstein (1984).
Robert Burns To Maria Riddell, A Lost Burns Manuscript And A Victorian Facsimile, Patrick Scott, Ronnie Young
Robert Burns To Maria Riddell, A Lost Burns Manuscript And A Victorian Facsimile, Patrick Scott, Ronnie Young
Studies in Scottish Literature
Reviews the textual history of Robert Burns's brief letter to Maria Riddell, in spring 1795, in Dumfries, mentioning the miniature portrait by Alexander Reid; notes that the manuscript, owned in the late 19th century by Dr Thomas C.S. Corry of Belfast, and later by John Gribbel of Philadelphia, cannot now be located; and describes and illustrates the facsimile made of it in 1864 for Vincent Brooks in the Autographic Mirror, now the only source of this letter manuscript available to the Glasgow editorial team for the forthcoming Oxford edition of Burns's Correspondence.
Esther Inglis, Octonaries, Upon The Vanitie And Inconstancie Of The World, Edited From Folger Ms V.A.91, Jamie Reid Baxter, Georgianna Ziegler
Esther Inglis, Octonaries, Upon The Vanitie And Inconstancie Of The World, Edited From Folger Ms V.A.91, Jamie Reid Baxter, Georgianna Ziegler
Studies in Scottish Literature
This article provides the first-ever printed text of the poem-sequence discussed in the preceding article, Octonaries, upon the Vanitie and Inconstancie of the Worlde (1600), by the Franco-Scottish poet and calligrapher Esther Inglis (1571-1624). The text given here has been transcribed from one of two manuscripts of the Octonaries in the Folger Library, MS V.a.91. Variant readings from two further manuscripts, Folger MS V.a.92, and New York Public Library Spencer Coll. MS. 14, along with some glosses, are given in the following section. NOTE: The text here now (June 13) incorporates a few final editors' corrections inadvertently omitted …
Appendices To Inglis, Octonaries: Titles And Dedications From Other Mss, Mss Containing The ‘G.D.’ And ‘Velde’ Sonnets, Who Was ‘G.D.’?, Jamie Reid Baxter
Appendices To Inglis, Octonaries: Titles And Dedications From Other Mss, Mss Containing The ‘G.D.’ And ‘Velde’ Sonnets, Who Was ‘G.D.’?, Jamie Reid Baxter
Studies in Scottish Literature
Three Appendices to the preceding article on Esther Inglis's Octonaries: (1) transcribe the Titles and Dedications in other manuscripts; (2) record the five MSS containing the ‘G.D.’ and ‘Velde’ Sonnets discussed in the article; and (3) review possibilities for the identity of 'G.D.', proposing that it was George Douglas, a gifted vernacular poet and translator of Boethius.NOTE: the current file (August 9 2023) includes further minor corrections. Please refresh your browser if you downloaded a previous version. SSL Ed.
Esther Inglis, Octonaries: Textual Notes And Glosses, Jamie Reid Baxter, Georgianna Ziegler
Esther Inglis, Octonaries: Textual Notes And Glosses, Jamie Reid Baxter, Georgianna Ziegler
Studies in Scottish Literature
These notes record variant readings from two further manuscripts of Esther Inglis's Octonaries, Folger MS V.a.92, and New York Public Library Spencer Coll. MS. 14, collated against the text transcribed in the preceding item, Folger Library, MS V.a.91. The notes also indicate the places where the order of the octonaries varies between manuscripts and also include a few glosses on Scots words likely to be unfamiliar to non-Scottish students or scholars. NOTE: the current version (June 25 2023) incorporates minor corrections. Please refresh your browser if you downloaded an earlier version. SSL Ed.
Burns And The Altar Of Independence: A Question Of Authentication, Patrick Scott, Gerard Carruthers
Burns And The Altar Of Independence: A Question Of Authentication, Patrick Scott, Gerard Carruthers
Studies in Scottish Literature
Describes and illustrates the only known manuscript of Robert Burns's short 'Poetical Inscription for an Altar to Independence'; notes ongoing disputes over the authenticity of several other of Burns's political poems from the 1790s; traces the manuscript's provenance from the Kern sale in 1929 (when it was cataloged as genuine) to Sotheby's in 1982 (when it was cataloged as a forgery), to its current location in the J.M.Shaw Collection, Florida State University Libraries, where more recent internal records catalogue it as authentic; points out evidence confirming its authenticity; and provides the first collation of the manuscript against the text published …
Burns And Jean Armour, Ellisland, 1788: A Letter Fragment In The Roy Collection, Patrick Scott
Burns And Jean Armour, Ellisland, 1788: A Letter Fragment In The Roy Collection, Patrick Scott
Studies in Scottish Literature
Describes and illustrates a two-sided fragment of Robert Burns's letter from Ellisland to his wife Jean Armour, in Muchline, from September 12, 1788, concerning her move to join him, and news for his brother Gilbert. Only four letters from Burns to Jean are now known; the main body of this letter was printed by Waddell in 1869, and was later recorded in the Honresfield Collection (now the Blavatnik-Honresfield Collection), but this section, now in the G. Ross Roy Collection at the University of South Carolina, was snipped off by the then-owner Mary MacLaughlan Nicolson for a collector before Waddell saw …
‘Scoto-Shamanistic’: The Collected Works Of Kenneth White, Richie Mccaffery
‘Scoto-Shamanistic’: The Collected Works Of Kenneth White, Richie Mccaffery
Studies in Scottish Literature
A review-essay discussing the work and influence of the expatriate Scottish poet and cultural theorist Kenneth White, based on vols 1-2 of the new Edinburgh University Press edition of White's Collected Works, edited by Cairns Craig (2021, paperback 2023), placing White in a line of Scottish polymath internationalist writers, from Buchanan and Urquhart, through Miller and Carlyle, to Geddes and MacDiarmid.
Anonymity With Intent? 'We Lordis Hes Chosin A Chiftane Mervellus', Janet Hadley Williams
Anonymity With Intent? 'We Lordis Hes Chosin A Chiftane Mervellus', Janet Hadley Williams
Studies in Scottish Literature
This paper considers an anonymous, untitled poem, opening “We lordis hes chosin a chiftane mervellus,” known in only one text, in the Bannatyne Manuscript (fols 78v–79r), among “ ballatis full of wisdome and moralitie.” Its enigmatic nature and place among the moral ‘ballatis’ have gone largely unstudied. Focus on the author’s identity (with William Dunbar seen as likely) has excluded the interesting question of possible deliberate anonymity. The poet’s Franco-Scots linguistic agility, and careful play of political interests (Scottish, French and English) are striking, the more so because, unusually, “We lordis” can be dated with some …
Cosmopolitanism And The Scottish Working-Class Writer: John Parkinson/Yehya-En-Nasr And Islam In Ayrshire, Kirstie Blair
Cosmopolitanism And The Scottish Working-Class Writer: John Parkinson/Yehya-En-Nasr And Islam In Ayrshire, Kirstie Blair
Studies in Scottish Literature
Explores the grassroots cosmopolitan and international literary interests of Scottish working-class writers, through the writing of the Scottish poet and convert to Islam John Parkinson or "Yehya-en-Nasr" (1874-1918), in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, in the monthly The Islamic World and the weekly newspaper The Crescent, as a journalist in Rangoon, and in book form, notably his Lays of Love and War (Ardrossan, n.d.), arguing that Parkinson's "Muslim cosmopolitanism" and his local Ayrshire identity and contexts were inextricably intertwined.
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.
'We'll Ne'er Forget The People': The Roy Manuscript Of Burns's 'The Dumfries Volunteers', Patrick Scott
'We'll Ne'er Forget The People': The Roy Manuscript Of Burns's 'The Dumfries Volunteers', Patrick Scott
Studies in Scottish Literature
A brief illustrated report on an early manuscript of Burns's song "The Dumfries Volunteers ("Does haughty Gaul invasion threat"), now in the Roy Collection, University of South Carolina Libraries, originally sent by Burns to the editor of the Dumfries Journal, and published there on May 5, 1795, but unavailable to Kinsley and other recent editors.
Thomas Pringle Reconsidered, Simon Lewis
Thomas Pringle Reconsidered, Simon Lewis
Studies in Scottish Literature
Review of Matthew Shum, Improvisations of Empire: Thomas Pringle in Scotland, the Cape Colony and London, 1789-1834. (Anthem, 2020), the first full-length critical study of the Scottish-South African poet, London literary editor, and anti-slavery activist Thomas Pringle, often regarded as "the father of South African poetry."
Thomas Campbell’S Epigram On The American Flag And Abolitionist Oratory: Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, And William Lloyd Garrison, Patrick Scott, Michael C. Weisenburg
Thomas Campbell’S Epigram On The American Flag And Abolitionist Oratory: Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, And William Lloyd Garrison, Patrick Scott, Michael C. Weisenburg
Studies in Scottish Literature
Describes the background to a brief epigram written in 1836 by the Scottish poet Thomas Campbell about the American flag and American slavery, which circulated widely in contemporary newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, and discusses the use made of Campbell's epigram over the next decades by three leading American anti-slavery orators, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and William Lloyd Garrison. The contemporary impact of the epigram is illustrated by an early non-authorial transcript recently acquired for the G. Ross Roy Collection.
Thomas Campbell, Joanna Baillie, And The New Monthly Magazine, Amy Wilcockson
Thomas Campbell, Joanna Baillie, And The New Monthly Magazine, Amy Wilcockson
Studies in Scottish Literature
Reports and transcribes (with illustration) a previously-unpublished letter dated December 2, 1820, to the Scottish poet and dramatist Joanna Baillie from Thomas Campbell, writing as the incoming editor of Colburn's New Monthly Magazine; discusses his role as editor, noting that Baillie's poem "To a Child" appeared in the next issue (and was reciprocated by Campbell's "To a Rainbow" in an anthology Baillie edited in 1823); and places the letter in the context of Campbell's busy professional and fraught family life.
'Compylit In Latin': Allan Ramsay And Scoto-Latinity In The Eighteenth Century, Ralph Mclean
'Compylit In Latin': Allan Ramsay And Scoto-Latinity In The Eighteenth Century, Ralph Mclean
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the importance and pervasiveness of Latin, including original Latin verse, in early 18th century Scotland, among Jacobites and in Ramsay's Edinburgh circle, with attention to the work of Archibald Pitcairne, Thomas Ruddiman, and later Robert Fergusson; examines Ramsay's own Scots translations of Horace and his use of the Horatian tradition, and looks also at translations from Ramsay into Latin by Alexander Fraser Tytler; and concludes that Ramsay's Scots poetry "helped to maintain" a Scottish link "to the classical past, by presenting the works of classical authors to new and growing audiences in Scotland in a language which was accessible …
'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 …
Allan Ramsay: Romanticism And Reception, Murray Pittock
Allan Ramsay: Romanticism And Reception, Murray Pittock
Studies in Scottish Literature
Provides a review and interpretation of Allan Ramsay's career and reputation, and of scholarly and critical response to his work, exploring "the foundational nature of his contribution to the language of Scottish literature," reaching a wider audience, for Scots, his dominant role in the history of Scottish song, and the pivotal role of his writing, especially his ballad-opera The Gentle Shepherd, in the formation of Scottish romanticism, and of the wider romantic movement.
Networks Of Sociability In Allan Ramsay's The Fair Assembly, Rhona Brown
Networks Of Sociability In Allan Ramsay's The Fair Assembly, Rhona Brown
Studies in Scottish Literature
Discusses the background, publication history, and significance of Allan Ramsay's poem The Fair Assembly (1723), about an elite dance gathering in Edinburgh, the social connections of its aristocratic patrons ("Directresses"), and its political and cultural implications, especially in connection with the continuing role of Jacobite and other anti-Whig and anti-Presbyterian sentiment in the nation's capital.
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.
“Black Coat” Scottish Spies: Clerical Informers In 1820, John Gardner
“Black Coat” Scottish Spies: Clerical Informers In 1820, John Gardner
Studies in Scottish Literature
This essay reviews modern debate about the use of government spies during the Scottish risings of 1819-1820; discusses the reliability of contemporary sources identifying Scottish clergy as government agents (notably Peter Mackenzie's An Exposure of the Spy System Pursued in Glasgow, 1835); turns to poetry from the period by Janet Hamilton and Alexander Rodger that insists that spies were used, including clergymen; and examines evidence of clerical espionage from the National Archives at Kew.
Paper Monuments: The Latin Elegies Of Thomas Chambers, Almoner To Cardinal Richelieu, Kelsey Jackson Williams
Paper Monuments: The Latin Elegies Of Thomas Chambers, Almoner To Cardinal Richelieu, Kelsey Jackson Williams
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the Latin poems by Thomas Chambers (or Chalmers), the younger, a well-connected mid-17th century Catholic priest who spent time in Rome and Scotland as well as in France, where he was almoner to Cardinal Richelieu, based on a manuscript collection of elegies Chalmers copied into George Strachan’s manuscript album amicorum, and on other elegies known from their use on monuments or tombs.