Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“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.

Eadar Canaan Is Garrabost (Between Canaan And Garrabost): Religion In Derick Thomson’S Lewis Poetry, Petra Johana Poncarová

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the treatment of religious belief in the Gaelic poetry of Derick Thomson (1921-2012), from the Outer Hebridean island of Lewis, off the northwest coast of Scotland, surveying Thomson's poems about his encounters with varieties of Presbyterianism, notably the Free Church, and exploring also nuances and religious allusions in poems about his own experience.

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.

‘Yon High Mossy Mountains’: A Burns Song Manuscript From The Roy Collection, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses and collates variants from a second autograph manuscript of Burns's song "Yon High..." or "Yon Wild Mossy Mountains," in the Roy Collection, University of South Carolina, reviewing the evidence on provenance, and assessing the purpose of the variants in the Roy manuscript.

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.

‘Weill Auchtyn Eldris Exemplis Ws To Steir’: Aeneas And The Narrator In The Prologues To Gavin Douglas’S Eneados, P. J. Klemp

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the translation of Virgil's Aeneid into Middle Scots by Gavin Douglas (1474-1522), the first translation of a major classical work into either Scots or English, analyzing the role of the narrator/translator in the prologues Douglas wrote, and arguing that by blurring the boundary between his own prefatory material and the Virgil text he was translating, Douglas brought the two elements into relationship to form a unified epic masterpiece.

The Roy Manuscript Of Burns’S 'To John Syme', Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes the only known authorial manuscript of a short poem by Robert Burns, now in the G. Ross Roy Collection at the University of South Carolina, providing a collation of variants among the early texts, and discussing the reliability of the transcripts of such Burns epigrams or versicles made by Burns's friend John Syme, on which editors must rely for other Burns items.

Courting Love: Comedy And Genre In Robene And Makyne, Caitlin Flynn

Studies in Scottish Literature

Observing that little critical scrutiny has been given to Henryson's shorter poems, argues that Henryson's Robene and Makyne challenges genre critics by its "seamlessness ... weaving together of courtly and country, formal and frolicking," and that the two lovers, who "embody the generic confusion marking the formal qualities of the poem," reflect "the comic instability of the generic resonances within the text," pointing to wider trends in Scottish imaginative literature of the period.

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‘I Am Just As Typically Scottish’: G.S. Fraser As Scottish Poet, Richie Mccaffery

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the poetry and poetic career of G. S. Fraser (1915-1980), both in the 1940s when he was regularly identified as a Scottish poet, and later in his life, arguing that the hostility of Scottish critics to his poetry in the 1950s (when he also built a substantial reputation as a London-based critic and reviewer) was unjustified, leading to the neglect of his substantial and continuing poetic achievement, and encouraging too narrow a definition of Scottish poetry.

The Poetry Of William Forbes Of Disblair (1661-1740), William Donaldson

Studies in Scottish Literature

Arguing that the early 18th century Scottish poet William Forbes has been given too little attention, introduces some of the issues in settling the canon of Forbes's work, and discusses both Forbes's anti-Union political poetry, notably The True Scots Genius, Reviving (1704), and A Pil for Pork-Eaters (1705), and his later dialogue on marriage, Xantippe: or the Scolding Wife (1724), an original development from a Latin dialogue by Erasmus. An appendix gives details of the eleven published poems attributable to Forbes.

Contributors To Ssl 45.2

Studies in Scottish Literature

Biographical information on contributors to SSL 45.2

Border Police: Scott’S Minstrelsy Of The Scottish Border, The Law, And The 1790s, Penny Fielding

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802 etc) in the context of Border history, Scottish legal philosophy, the jurisdictional and cultural concept of the "Debateable Lands," and the Scottish political situation during the political trials and the Militia Act riots in the 1790s. .

A New Janet Hamilton Manuscript, Robert Maclean, Gerard Carruthers

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes and illustrates a newly-identified short poem in the distinctive hand of the Scottish working-class poet Janet Hamilton (1795-1873), discovered tipped into a volume of The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (1852 [1853]), in University of Glasgow Library, with information on the provenance of the volume.

Scotland And The Geometric Imagination, Mike Hill

Studies in Scottish Literature

Review of: Matthew Wickman. Literature After Euclid: The Geometric Imagination in the Long Scottish Enlightenment. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.The review praises Wickman's "extraordinary book," designed to “throw a wrench into grand narratives about modernity,” summarizing its wide-ranging argument about the centrality of spatial, visual and geometric thought in what Wickman calls "the long looping eighteenth century," in Scottish philosophy, education and literature, and commenting briefly on the implications of Wickman's argument for "how literary canons are made" and "the dynamics of disciplines."

W.S. Graham: ‘Born In A Diamond Screeched From A Mountain Pap’, Gerard Carruthers

Studies in Scottish Literature

Provides a centenary reassessment of the Scottish poet W. S. Graham (1918-1986), increasingly recognized as a writer of enduring significance, both for Scottish poetry and for 20th century Modernist poetry more broadly, through close readings of poems from different phases of Graham’s writing career. An edited version of the Hugh MacDiarmid Lecture in March 2018 at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh.

‘The Hope That Someone Might Present Them With A Kilmarnock Burns’: The National Library Of Scotland’S First Kilmarnock, Robert Betteridge

Studies in Scottish Literature

Recounts, from correspondence and minutes in the National Library of Scotland, and from contemporary newspapers, the library's unsuccessful efforts to attract a donated copy of Robert Burns's first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Kilmarnock: John Wilson, 1786), and its successful purchase at auction in 1950 of the "Hoe copy," with original wrappers bound in.

A ‘Scoto-British-European’ Rediscovered: The Life And Writings Of George Lauder, Kelsey Jackson Williams

Studies in Scottish Literature

Review of: Alasdair A. MacDonald, George Lauder (1603-1670): Life and Writings. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2018.The review suggests that, until Alasdair MacDonald’s book, the "originality, ingenuity, and significance" of the expatriate Scots soldier and poet George Lauder (1603-1670) "have been radically underestimated," and in exploring MacDonald's book, which is both biography and edition, provides a introductory critical assessment of Lauder's varied poetry and translations, endorsing as more widely applicable MacDonald's argument that "Scots writing in English deserve equal attention as their Scotophone counterparts" and that "'authors who are innovative in drawing inspiration from new foreign models deserve better than to …

George Thomson To Robert Burns: A Newly-Identified Manuscript Letter-Fragment, Gerard Lee Mckeever

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes and illustrates a newly-identified fragment (final page) of a letter to Robert Burns in April 1793 from George Thomson, editor of the Select Collection of Original Scotish Songs, in the Newberry Library, Chicago, discusses the date of the letter and of the Burns song "The Soger's Return" on the letter verso, and reviews the implication of the manuscript for the sequence of letters in the Thomson-Burns correspondence.

Douglas’S Palyce Of Honour Re-Edited, P. J. Klemp

Studies in Scottish Literature

Review of: David J. Parkinson, ed. Gavin Douglas: “The Palyce of Honour.” 2nd edition. Kalamazoo, MI: Published for TEAMS (Teaching Association for Medieval Studies) in Association with the University of Rochester by Medieval Institute Publications, 2018. Judging the volume an "impressive accomplishment," the review draws attention to Parkinson's much expanded introduction, which provides both "first-rate literary criticism" and "a comprehensive study of Douglas’s biography and the Palyce’s textual issues, language, and participation in the genre of the dream vision."

Claimed By The Stage: Popular Dramatization And The Legacy Of The Lady Of The Lake, Mary Nestor

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses three stage adaptations of Scott's poem The Lady of the Lake, by Thomas Dibdin for the Surrey Theatre, London, John Edmund Eyre, for the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, and Thomas Morton for Covent Garden, arguing that these popular melodramas shaped popular perception of how Scott's poem engaged the Highland landscape.

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‘Such Editorial Liberties’: Scott And The Textual Afterlives Of Thomas The Rhymer, David Selfe

Studies in Scottish Literature

This essay discusses from his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802 etc) Walter Scott's version of the ballad "Thomas the Rhymer" (or "True Thomas") tracing the ballad's history within the social context of its reception, and then comparing Scott’s version with the orally-transmitted version "Thomas Rhymer and the Queen of Elfland",written down by Anna Gordon Brown in 1800, for differences both in wording and in punctuation choices as the “apologetic apostrophe,” to suggest how such textual traces show the changing relationship between textual form and textual function. [essay still in final proof stage]

Translations Of Robert Burns In The Russian Book Market: The Old And The New, Natalia Kaloh Vid

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the influence of Samuil Marshak's long-dominant Russian translations of Robert Burns's poems and the more recent anthologies and translations that "broke the Marshak monopoly," and briefly examines why, in publishing terms, the Marshak translations are still the most widely available.

'Like Pushkin, I': Hugh Macdiarmid And Russia, Patrick Crotty

Studies in Scottish Literature

A detailed discussion of the poetic development of the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiamid (1892-1978), drawing on research for the forthcoming Complete Collected Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid to chart the changing ways in which he encountered, read, and responded to Russian writing, philosophy and culture in different phases of his career.

Tom Scott As Religious Poet: 'The Paschal Candill' In Context, Richie Mccaffery

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the religious beliefs and writings of the Scottish poet Tom Scott (1918-1995), both as a continuing concern and during a period of explicitly Catholic belief in the 1950, examining in detail his Catholic poem 'The Paschal Candill' in relation to his much more widely-recognized political comments.

Robert Burns In Print At The National Library Of Scotland, Robert Betteridge

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the early Burns editions now in the National Library of Scotland, compares the NLS holdings to those of other major UK research libraries, examines the limited role of the deposit privilege in bring early Burns editions to the Advocates' Library before the founding of the NLS, and provides examples of significant early editions that were subsequently acquired for the library by purchase and donation.

The Scotch Bard And 'The Planting Line': New Documents On Burns And Jamaica, Clark Mcginn

Studies in Scottish Literature

Based on newly-identified documents, reexamines Burns's plan in 1786 to emigrate to Jamaica to take a job on a Scottish-owned slave plantation, and the timing and circumstances of his eventual decision to stay in Scotland, concluding that Burns "kept his options open to the last moment," and that the new documents might mean Burns "sought to prosper from chattel slavery," and "only dropped the opportunity because a better offer came along, not because of any moral scruples."

'Not In Egerer'? (Some Of) What We Still Don't Know About Burns Bibliography, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Briefly reviews developments in Burns bibliography since J.W. Egerer's Bibliography of Robert Burns (1964), examines the kinds of material that Egerer aimed to include and exclude, and presents a series of brief case-studies illustrating the desirability of additional research, especially on early publication in non-book formats, for obtaining a fuller picture of Burns's textual history and readership.

'Upon The Decaying Kirk': A Footnote To Ane Dialogue, Jamie Reid Baxter

Studies in Scottish Literature

Prints a short Scottish verse-fragment from the 1630s, "Upon the Decaying Kirk," and discusses its relation to an earlier, longer workAne Dialogue (1619: see SSL 43:1) and to presbyterian protests in the Edinburgh High Kirk against the introduction of episcopalianism under King Charles I.

Books Noted And Received, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Short reviews and brief notices of twenty-one recent books in Scottish literary studies.

Gavin Douglas's Aeneados: Caxton's English And 'Our Scottis Langage', Jacquelyn Hendricks

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the Scots poet Gavin Douglas's translation of Virgil's Aeneid into Scots, and Douglas's treatment of his predecessor William Caxton's translation of Virgil into English, arguing that Douglas associates Caxton's English with a barbaric world of monsters and beasts, in contrast to Scots which is seen as expressing civilized classical values, and that Douglas's translation, by enhancing and showcasing the literary power of Scots for a wider audience, successfully resisted for at least forty years the linguistic standardization initiated by the burgeoning print industry.