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'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 …
'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 …
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 …
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.
Methodising Scots: The Cases Of Allan Ramsay & Thomas Ruddiman, Jeremy J. Smith
Methodising Scots: The Cases Of Allan Ramsay & Thomas Ruddiman, Jeremy J. Smith
Studies in Scottish Literature
Examines the linguistic issues facing editors of two 18th century Scottish editors, Allan Ramsay and Thomas Ruddiman, in modifying or standardizing the language in earlier Scottish poetic manuscripts, arguing that "the editorial process is not—and never has been—“neutral” or “objective” but is rather a hermeneutic act constrained by contemporary conditions of publication and intended audience," and that Ramsay and Ruddiman, like modern editors, were "constrained in quite delicate ways by their historical setting."
The Sunset Song Of Religion, Or, Have We Ever Been Post-Secular?, Matthew Wickman
The Sunset Song Of Religion, Or, Have We Ever Been Post-Secular?, Matthew Wickman
Studies in Scottish Literature
A discussion of the treatment and presence of religion in Sunset Song, the first novel in Lewis Grassic Gibbon's trilogy A Scots Quair, with some general reflections on religion and literature, and discussion of "post-secularity"
“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.
Books Noted And Received, Patrick Scott
Books Noted And Received, Patrick Scott
Studies in Scottish Literature
Shorter reviews and notices of recent books in Scottish literature and adjacent disciplines.
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.
Bliadhna Nan Caorach/The Year Of The Sheep: Reading Highland Protest In The 1790s, Alexander Dick
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).
Preface To Ssl 46.1, Patrick Scott, Tony Jarrells
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.
Alasdair Gray (1934-2019), Patrick Scott
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.
Debating Insurrection In Galt's Ringan Gilhaize, Padma Rangarajan
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,
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.
Afterword: 'A Wrong-Resenting People': Writing Insurrectionary Scotland, Christopher A. Whatley
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.
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.
Performing Authenticity In The 19th-Century Short Story: Walter Benjamin, James Hogg, And The Spy, Duncan Hotchkiss
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.
The Path To Quarry Wood: Nan Shepherd’S Short Fiction In Alma Mater, Graham Stephen
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.
Contributors To Ssl 46.1
Studies in Scottish Literature
Brief biographical notes on contributors to SSL 46.1.
The King And The People In Burns And Lady Nairne, With A Coda On Jane Austen’S Favorite Burns Song, Carol Mcguirk
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.
The Reputation Of David Gray, David Mcvey
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
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."