Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Simon & Samwise: Big Damn Heroes, Andrew Peterson

Journal of Tolkien Research

Joss Whedon’s seminal TV show Firefly, based on Michael Shaara’s book The Killer Angels, has interesting parallels to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In both tales, nine disparate people band together on a journey to topple a tyrannical force while protecting a hero burdened with the means to end the struggle against a mighty oppressor. Each hero is blessed with a loyal protector who fiercely defends his charge from threats from within their fellowship and from the world at large. A closer look will reveal the similarities between River Tam and Frodo Baggins and between …

Death As A Gift In J.R.R Tolkien's Work And Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gaelle Abalea

Journal of Tolkien Research

In the episode “Intervention” (S5 ep.18), when going on a spiritual quest about her nature as a slayer, Buffy is told, by the guide under the form of the first Slayer, that ‘Death is her Gift’. Buffy, a 20^th century young woman is confused by the declaration, as are the viewers unless they have read the Silmarilliion, in which the Elves refer to human mortality as the Gift of Illuvatar, a gift they greatly envy.

Writing decades apart, Tolkien and Whedon may not have the same use of the word “gift” as their background and inspirations are quite different …

The Impact Of Occupational Self-Efficacy On Job Performance, Kaeley A. Tener

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From business-related literature, the occupational-self efficacy (OSE) theory has been used to explain employee confidence, motivation, success, or lack of success when used in conjunction with measurable training or evaluation. The presence and effects of OSE have been seen in various occupational sectors and industries. For Human Resources practitioners, utilizing the concepts of OSE in the workforce is more than just training or communication. The present study analyzed the presence and effects of OSE on an online student population at a technical college in a Midwestern University. The results from frequency, correlation, and cross-tabulation tests reveal that levels of OSE …

Preface To Ssl 46.1, Patrick Scott, Tony Jarrells

Studies in Scottish Literature

Introducing the issue, with brief tributes to three Scottish literature scholars who died in summer 2020: Colin Manlove, Aileen Christianson, and Douglas Gifford.

Performing Authenticity In The 19th-Century Short Story: Walter Benjamin, James Hogg, And The Spy, Duncan Hotchkiss

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses periodical short stories by the Scottish writer James Hogg (1770-1835), and his periodical The Spy, arguing that these textually perform oral story-telling features within the print medium, problematize Walter Benjamin’s distinction between traditional oral storytelling and the printed short story as vanguard of modernity, and show the periodical short story as a form embodies modernity while performing tradition.

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.

'You Must Fire On Them': Protest And Repression In Pulteneytown, Caithness, In 1847, James Hunter

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines based on contemporary accounts the protests in the small coastal town Pulteneytown, Caithness, on Wednesday, 24 February, 1847, against the export of grain; the circumstances in which a small detachment from the British Army’s 76th Regiment opened fire on the protesters; and local and London newspaper comments about the confrontation and the military response.

Bliadhna Nan Caorach/The Year Of The Sheep: Reading Highland Protest In The 1790s, Alexander Dick

Studies in Scottish Literature

Describes Bliadhna nan Caorach, the Year of the Sheep, in Ross-shire in the summer of 1792 when about 200 Highland farmers from Strathrusdale and other communities drove as many as 10,000 cheviot and blackface sheep toward Inverness to protest their intrusion on to Highland lands; discusses the difference between protest, riot, and insurrection; and examines a poetic response by Ailean Dughallach (Allan MacDougall) and two sympathetic prose reactions, by Anne Grant, of Laggan, and a touring English clergyman John Lettice (who attended the subsequent trials, but took some of his information from the Statistical Account).

Debating Insurrection In Galt's Ringan Gilhaize, Padma Rangarajan

Studies in Scottish Literature

Argues that John Galt's novel Ringan Gilhaize (1823), answering Walter Scott's Old Mortality (1816), a counternarrative about the Scottish Covenanters, their defeat at Bothwell Brig (1679), and the history of the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, attempts a delicate dialectic, less imitative homage to Scott than "winking ventriloquism," presenting three generations of filial and social history filtered through the perspective of a single, idiosyncratic narrative voice,

Alasdair Gray (1934-2019), Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

A short tribute to the Scottish artist and writer Alasdair Gray, his friendship with and portrait of G. Ross Roy, the illustrations he did for Studies in Scottish Literature, and other Gray drawings in the Roy Collection at the University of South Carolina.

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.

Afterword: 'A Wrong-Resenting People': Writing Insurrectionary Scotland, Christopher A. Whatley

Studies in Scottish Literature

A broadranging review of "conflictual events" in Scottish history from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries, exploring attitudes towards protest or insurrection, both on the part of the protesters and of the local and central governmental authorities, arguing for the value of interdisciplinary research on the sources, and providing references for literary students to some of the relevant historical scholarship.

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.

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.

“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.

The Path To Quarry Wood: Nan Shepherd’S Short Fiction In Alma Mater, Graham Stephen

Studies in Scottish Literature

Explores the literary development of the Scottish novelist Nan Shepherd (1893-1981), in particular her path towards such novels as The Quarry Wood (1928), through her notebooks, correspondence, and early university writings, particularly in a series of overlooked short stories published in special annual charity numbers of Alma Mater, the University of Aberdeen’s student magazine.

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

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."

Books Noted And Received, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

Shorter reviews and notices of recent books in Scottish literature and adjacent disciplines.

Contributors To Ssl 46.1

Studies in Scottish Literature

Brief biographical notes on contributors to SSL 46.1.