Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 27 of 27

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Introduction: The Alabama Conference On Medieval & Renaissance Scottish Literature: Reframing And Mediation, Tricia A. Mcelroy, David Parkinson Dec 2021

Introduction: The Alabama Conference On Medieval & Renaissance Scottish Literature: Reframing And Mediation, Tricia A. Mcelroy, David Parkinson

Studies in Scottish Literature

Introduces the broader theme of the 16th International Conference on Medieval & Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature, held at the University of Alabama in 2021, and comments briefly on the four papers that follow.


Books Received And Noted, Patrick Scott Dec 2021

Books Received And Noted, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Brief notices of selected recent books in the general field of Scottish literary studies; short notice here need not preclude fuller review of some titles in future.


Contributors To Ssl 47.2 Dec 2021

Contributors To Ssl 47.2

Studies in Scottish Literature

Brief biographical notes on contributors to SSL 47.2.


Preface To Ssl 47.2, Patrick Scott, Tony Jarrells Dec 2021

Preface To Ssl 47.2, Patrick Scott, Tony Jarrells

Studies in Scottish Literature

Introduces the issue contents and briefly describes plans for forthcoming issues, and notes the recent deaths of two longtime SSL contributors, Henry L. Fulton (1935-2021) and Edward J. Cowan (1944-2022).


Walter Scott At 250, Alison Lumsden, Kirsty Archer-Thompson Dec 2021

Walter Scott At 250, Alison Lumsden, Kirsty Archer-Thompson

Studies in Scottish Literature

This essay marking the 250th anniversary of Walter Scott's birth reflects on the current state of Scott studies, the scholarly directions in which it might develop, and ways in which the relevance of Scott’s work may be re-discovered and re-invigorated for contemporary audiences. In particular, it examines scholarly and critical attitudes to Scott's work over the past 50 years through papers given at the triennial international Scott conferences initiated in Edinburgh in 1971, alongside developments in public engagement at Abbotsford House and elsewhere during the 250th anniversary year.


Scott's Last Words, Peter Garside Dec 2021

Scott's Last Words, Peter Garside

Studies in Scottish Literature

Walter Scott’s dying words as recounted by J. G. Lockhart, widely accepted by in the Victorian period, have since been seen as largely fabricated. In 1938, H. J. C. Grierson blamed Lockahart’s “pious myth” on a “lady relative” of Scott’s anxious to deflect future detractors who might vilify Scott as irreligious. The concerened lady, unnamed by Grierson, was Mrs Harriet Scott of Harden, one of Scott’s first confidants, early adviser on literary matters, and later nearby neighbour at Mertoun House. Her positive influence on Scott, still underestimated, is hardly that of the “evangelical lady” featured regularly in post-Grierson Scott biographies. …


‘Co-Ainm Na Taca Seo An-Uiridh’: Dugald Macnicol’S Caribbean Lament For Argyll, Nigel Leask, Peadar Ó Muircheartaigh Dec 2021

‘Co-Ainm Na Taca Seo An-Uiridh’: Dugald Macnicol’S Caribbean Lament For Argyll, Nigel Leask, Peadar Ó Muircheartaigh

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article examines a Gaelic song written in 1816 in St. Lucia by a Scottish Gaelic-speaking army officer from Argyll, Dugald MacNicol (1791-1844), sketching MacNicol's life and military career in the Caribbean, in the Royal West Indian Rangers and later in the 1st Royals (Royal Scots Regiment), placing the song in relation to other Gaelic poems of emigration and exile, and printing a newly-edited text of MacNicol's song alongside the authors' English translation.


Douglas Young, Hellenist, Ward Briggs Dec 2021

Douglas Young, Hellenist, Ward Briggs

Studies in Scottish Literature

A reassessment of the Scottish writer Douglas Young's career as classicist, poet, translator, and teacher, tracing the centrality to his achievement of his commitment to Greek literature and classical scholarship.


Thomas Pringle Reconsidered, Simon Lewis Dec 2021

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."


Robert Burns’S Life On The Stage: A Bibliography Of Dramatic Works, 1842–2019, Thomas Keith Dec 2021

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 Dec 2021

'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.


'A Quivering Quick-Sand': Romantic Border Aesthetics, David Stewart Oct 2021

'A Quivering Quick-Sand': Romantic Border Aesthetics, David Stewart

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines Romantic and later treatments of the Solway's distinctive quicksands and bore-tides, from Anne Radcliffe and Allan Cunningham to Edwin Morgan, with special focus on Walter Scott's Solway novels, Redgauntlet and Guy Mannering.


David Lindsay And The Shape Of Inner Being, Eric Wills Oct 2021

David Lindsay And The Shape Of Inner Being, Eric Wills

Studies in Scottish Literature

Explores the influence of German Idealist philosophy, specifically Nietzsche and Hegel, in the work of the 20th century Scottish writer David Lindsay (1876-1945), now best-known for his novel A Voyage to Arcturus (1920) with primary attention to the role and character of symbolic imagery in Lindsay's stories, focusing on his novels Sphinx (1923) and Devil’s Tor (1932), and countering the broadly gnostic worldview sometimes attributed to him.


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 Oct 2021

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.


Preface To Ssl 47.1, Patrick Scott, Tony Jarrells Oct 2021

Preface To Ssl 47.1, Patrick Scott, Tony Jarrells

Studies in Scottish Literature

Introduces the issue contents, pays brief tribute to six long-time Scottish literature scholars who have recently died (Michael Timko, Priscilla Bawcutt, Greg Kratzmann, Robert Donaldson, Thorne Compton, and Dorothy McMillan), notes that the journal has now surpassed 400,000 article downloads, and describes plans for forthcoming issues.


Thomas Campbell, Joanna Baillie, And The New Monthly Magazine, Amy Wilcockson Oct 2021

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.


Contributors To Ssl 47.1 Oct 2021

Contributors To Ssl 47.1

Studies in Scottish Literature

Brief biographical notes on contributors to the current issue of the journal.


Serious Play On The Fringes Of Empire: Zoë Wicomb, Thomas Pringle, And The Transnational Author, Simon Lewis Oct 2021

Serious Play On The Fringes Of Empire: Zoë Wicomb, Thomas Pringle, And The Transnational Author, Simon Lewis

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the novel Still Life (2020) by the Scottish/South African writer Zoë Wicomb, which portrays a contemporary novelist researching the life and significance of the Scottish/South African poet Thomas Pringle (1789-1834) through an imaginative collaboration with an early 20th century bellelettristic biographer (referencing Virginia Woolf's imaginative biography Orlando) and with the intervention of two African figures Pringle believed himself to have liberated, the West Indian ex-slave Mary Prince (c. 1788-1833) and Hinza, the Tswana boy memorialized in one of Pringle's best-known South African poems, suggesting that Wicomb's novel (and her oeuvre) present an important transnational version of authorial identity …


Moulding A Persona: The Life And Letters Of William Sharp And Fiona Macleod, Michael Shaw Oct 2021

Moulding A Persona: The Life And Letters Of William Sharp And Fiona Macleod, Michael Shaw

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses William F. Halloran's three-volume collected Life and Letters of the Scottish poet and critic William Sharp (1855-1905) and his literary alter ego “Fiona Macleod,” with primary attention to the third and most recent volume and to its significance for students of Scottish literature and the fin-de-siecle.


'This Prodigious Mass': The Eruption Of The Solway Moss In 1771, Alex Deans Oct 2021

'This Prodigious Mass': The Eruption Of The Solway Moss In 1771, Alex Deans

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes the sudden bursting of the peat surface of the Solway Moss, above and west of the Esk River, and the destruction that followed, through initial reports from the Scots Magazine, the account by John Walker in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and two accounts by Thomas Pennant, one before the disaster and a fuller one after, in his Tour in Scotland... in 1772 (1774).


From Skiddaw To Scruffell: Sightlines Over The Solway, Christopher Donaldson, Joanna Taylor Oct 2021

From Skiddaw To Scruffell: Sightlines Over The Solway, Christopher Donaldson, Joanna Taylor

Studies in Scottish Literature

Explores the geography, and literary antecedents, of William Wordsworth's poems about Robert Burns from the visit he and his sister Dorothy made across the Solway Firth to Dumfries and Ellisland in 1803, and discusses the link they made between the two mountains of Skiddaw in Cumberland and Curfell or Criffel on the Scottish side of the Firth.


The Natural-Supernatural Solway, Fiona Stafford Oct 2021

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).


Thomas Mcgrugar’S ‘Letters Of Zeno’: Patriotic Print & Constitutional Improvement In The Caledonian Mercury, 1782-1783, Alex Benchimol Oct 2021

Thomas Mcgrugar’S ‘Letters Of Zeno’: Patriotic Print & Constitutional Improvement In The Caledonian Mercury, 1782-1783, Alex Benchimol

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses a series of five newspaper letters by Thomas McGrugar (1751-1810), published in an Edinburgh newspaper the Caledonian Mercury, which urged increased representation of the Scottish burghs in the U.K. parliament, and argues that in them McGrugar used print culture to create an alternative political forum to existing political structures.


The Sobieski Stuarts And The Royal Lady’S Magazine: Some Newly-Attributed Tales, Craig Buchanan Oct 2021

The Sobieski Stuarts And The Royal Lady’S Magazine: Some Newly-Attributed Tales, Craig Buchanan

Studies in Scottish Literature

Identifies and describes19 previously unrecorded periodical tales, some in multiple parts, contributed to the Royal Lady's Magazine in 1831-34, by the prolific early Victorian Stuart pretenders John and Charles Sobieski Stuart, providing evidence for the attributions and the brothers' pen-names, and quadrupling their known literary output.


'I'M In Full Control': Muriel Spark's The Finishing School, Robert E. Hosmer Oct 2021

'I'M In Full Control': Muriel Spark's The Finishing School, Robert E. Hosmer

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the special issues for reviewers treating an author's late work, analyzes Muriel's Spark's last novel, The Finishing School (2004) and its reception, and draws on correspondence in the Spark archives at the National Library of Scotland to document Spark's firm control over the text of her work.


Introduction: Literary Geographies: The Solway Firth, Gerard Lee Mckeever Oct 2021

Introduction: Literary Geographies: The Solway Firth, Gerard Lee Mckeever

Studies in Scottish Literature

Introduces the symposium that follows by describing the Solway Firth, its shores and its significance in the late 18th and early 19th century, defining the perspective of the symposium as "critical regionalism," examining the theme through an 1821 magazine story-series about a steam-boat on the Solway and through Allan Cunningham's novel Lord Roldan (1836), and reviewing the other symposium papers to highlight their contributions to this theme.


Boswell’S 'The Cub' And The Shadow Of Augustan Satire, Robert G. Walker Oct 2021

Boswell’S 'The Cub' And The Shadow Of Augustan Satire, Robert G. Walker

Studies in Scottish Literature

Reassesses James Boswell's satiric poem, and self-portrait, "The Cub" (1762), and Boswell's known affinity for the writings of Sterne, arguing for a wider satiric context in early Augustan satiric poetry, in Pope and especially Swift, and analysing the poem's multiple shifts of satiric viewpoint and allusion.