Edinburgh Companion To Scottish Traditional Literatures

This collection of essays explores the historical importance and imaginative richness of Scotland's extensive contribution to modes of traditional culture and expression: ballads, tales and storytelling, and song. Its underlying aim is to bring about a more dynamic and inclusive understanding of Scottish culture. Rooted in literary history and both comparative and interdisciplinary in scope, the volume covers the key aspects and genres of traditional literature, including the Gaelic tradition, from the medieval period to the present. Key theoretical and conceptual issues raised by the historical analysis of Scotland's rich store of ballad, song, and folk narrative are discussed in separate chapters. The volume also explores why and how Scottish literary writers have been inspired by traditional genres, modes, and motifs, and the intermingling of folk and literary traditions in writers such as Burns, Scott, and Hogg. It also uncovers the folkloric and mythopoetic materials of early Scottish literature, and the vitality of neglected aspects of Scottish popular culture.

Combines historical rigour with an analysis of dramatic contexts, themes and formsThe 17 contributors explore the longstanding and vibrant Scottish dramatic tradition and the important developments in Scottish dramatic writing and theatre, with particular attention to the last 100 years.The first part of the volume covers Scottish drama from the earliest records to the late twentieth-century literary revival, as well as translation in Scottish theatre and non-theatrical drama. The second part focuses on the work of influential Scottish playwrights, from J. M. Barrie and James Bridie to Ena Lamont Stewart, Liz Lochhead and Edwin Morgan and right up to contemporary playwrights Anthony Neilson, Gregory Burke, Henry Adams and Douglas Maxwell.

This volume considers the major themes, texts and authors of Scottish literature of the twentieth and, so far, twenty-first century. It identifies the contexts and impulses that led Scottish writers to adopt their creative literary strategies. Moving beyond traditional classifications, it draws on the most recent critical approaches to open up new perspectives on Scottish literature since 1900. The volume's innovative thematic structure ensures that the most important texts or authors are seen from different perspectives whether in the context of empire, renaissance, war and post-war, literary genre, generation, and resistance. In order to provide thorough coverage, these thematic chapters are complemented by chronological 'Arcade' chapters, which outline the contexts of the literature of the period by decades, and by 'Overview' chapters which trace developments across the century in theatre, language and Gaelic literature. Taken together, the chapters provide a thorough and thought-provoking account of the century's literature.

This is a comprehensive collection devoted to the work of Sir Walter Scott, drawing on the innovative research and scholarship which have revitalised the study of the whole range of his exceptionally diverse writing in recent years.

Bringing together an international group of experts, this companion explores a distinctly Scottish Romanticism. Discussing the most influential texts and authors in depth, the original essays shed new critical light on texts from Macpherson's Ossian poetry to Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner, and from Scott's Waverley Novels to the work of John Galt. As well as dealing with the major Romantic figures, the contributors look afresh at ballads, songs, the idea of the bard, religion, periodicals, the national tale, the picturesque, the city, language and the role of Gaelic in Scottish Romanticism.Key Features* The first and only student guide to Scottish Romanticism capturing the best of critical debate while providing new approaches* Contributors include: Ian Duncan (UC Berkeley), Angela Esterhammer (Zurich University), Peter Garside (Edinburgh University), Andrew Monnickendam (Barcelona University), Fiona Stafford (Oxford University), Fernando Toda (Salamanca University) and Crawford Gribben (Trinity College, Dublin) - who have themselves helped to define approaches to the period

By combining historical spread with a thematic structure, this volume explores the ways in which gender has shaped literary output and addresses the changing situations in which Scottish women lived and wrote.

Recognises the richness of women's contribution to Scottish literature. By combining historical spread with a thematic structure, this volume explores the ways in which gender has shaped literary output and addresses the changing situations in which women lived and wrote. It places the work of established writers such as Margaret Oliphant, Naomi Mitchison and A.L. Kennedy in new contexts and discusses the writing of critically neglected figures such as Sileas na Ceapaich, Mary Queen of Scots, Anne Grant, Janet Hamilton, Isabella Bird, F. Marion McNeill and Denise Mina. There are chapters on women in Gaelic culture, women's relationship to oral traditions and to key literary periods, women's engagements with nationalism, with space, with genre fiction and with the activity of reading.

A guide devoted to its subject, the book draws on recent breakthroughs in research on Hogg to illuminate the urgent debates and fruitful contexts that helped to shape his writings. Essays written by an international team of scholars provide an indispensab

This is the first and only guide to Scottish Romanticism. It captures the best of critical debate as well as presenting exciting new approaches to a distinctively Scottish Romanticism in literary theory, religious studies, music and song and the thematic

Bringing together a range of perspectives on the Gaelic language, this book covers the history of the language, its development in Scotland and Canada, its spelling, syntax and morphology, its modern vocabulary, and the study of its dialects. It also addresses sociolinguistic issues such as identity, perception, language planning and the appearance of the language in literature. Each chapter is written by an expert on their topic.The book has been written accessibly with a non-specialist audience in mind. It will have a particular value for those requiring introductions to aspects of the Gaelic language. It will also be of great interest to those who are embarking on research on Gaelic for the first time. Authors include Colm O Baoill, David Adger, Rob Dunbar, Seosamh Watson, Ken Nilsen, Ken MacKinnon and Ronald Black.