Scottish literature - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

"Scottish Fiction" redirects here; for the Idlewild album, see Scottish Fiction: Best of 1997–2007.

Scottish literature is literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

written in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

or by Scottish writers. It includes literature written in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Scottish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic language

Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....

, Scots

Scots language

Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

, Brythonic

Brythonic languages

The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Latin and any other language in which a piece of literature was ever written within the boundaries of modern Scotland.

The earliest extant literature written in what is now Scotland, was composed in Brythonic

Brythonic languages

speech in the 6th century and has survived as part of Welsh literature. In the following centuries there was literature in Latin, under the influence of the Catholic Church, and in Old English, brought by Anglian

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

settlers. As the state of Alba

Alba

Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...

developed into the kingdom of Scotland from the 8th century, there was a flourishing literary elite who regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin, sharing a common literary culture with Ireland and elsewhere. After the Davidian Revolution

Davidian Revolution

The Davidian Revolution is a term given by many scholars to the changes which took place in the Kingdom of Scotland during the reign of David I of Scotland...

of the 13th century a flourishing French language culture predominated, while Norse literature was produced from areas of Scandinavian settlement. The first surviving major text in Early Scots

Early Scots

Early Scots describes the emerging literary language of the Northern Middle English speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English...

literature is the 14th century poet John Barbour's epic Brus
The Brus
The Brus is a long narrative poem of just under 14,000 octosyllabic lines composed by John Barbour which gives a historic and chivalric account of the actions of Robert the Bruce and the Black Douglas in the Scottish Wars of Independence during a period from the circumstances leading up the English...

, which was followed by a series of vernacular versions of medieval romances. These were joined in the 15th century by Scots prose works.

In the early modern era royal patronage supported poetry, prose and drama. James V

James V of Scotland

James V was King of Scots from 9 September 1513 until his death, which followed the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss...

's court saw works such as Sir David Lindsay of the Mount

David Lyndsay

Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, was a Scottish Lord Lyon and poet of the 16th century, whose works reflect the spirit of the Renaissance.-Biography:...

's The Thrie Estaitis. In the late 16th century James VI became patron and member of a circle of Scottish court poets and musicians known as the Castalian Band

Castalian Band

The Castalian Band was a group of Scottish Jacobean poets, or makars, which flourished between the 1580s and early 1590s in the court of James VI and was consciously modelled on the French example of the Pléiade. Its name is derived from the classical term Castalian Spring, a symbol for poetic...

. When he acceded to the English throne in 1603 many followed him to the new court, but without a centre of royal patronage the tradition of Scots poetry subsided. It was revived after union with England in 1707 by figures including Allan Ramsay

Allan Ramsay (poet)

Allan Ramsay was a Scottish poet , playwright, publisher, librarian and wig-maker.-Life and career:...

and James Macpherson

James Macpherson

James Macpherson was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.-Early life:...

. The latter's Ossian Cycle

Ossian

Ossian is the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a character from Irish mythology...

made him the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation. He helped inspire Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

, considered by many to be the national poet, and Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

, whose Waverley Novels

Waverley Novels

The Waverley Novels are a long series of books by Sir Walter Scott. For nearly a century they were among the most popular and widely-read novels in all of Europe. Because he did not publicly acknowledge authorship until 1827, they take their name from Waverley , which was the first...

did much to define Scottish identity in the 19th century. Towards the end of the Victorian era a number of Scottish-born authors achieved international reputations, including Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

, Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...

, J. M. Barrie

J. M. Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...

and George MacDonald

George MacDonald

George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. It was C.S...

.

In the 20th century there was a surge of activity in Scottish literature, known as the Scottish Renaissance

Scottish Renaissance

The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid 20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics...

. The leading figure, Hugh MacDiarmid

Hugh MacDiarmid

Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...

, attempted to revive the Scots language as a medium for serious literature. Members of the movement were followed by a new generation of post-war poets including Edwin Morgan, who would be appointed the first Scots Makar by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004. From the 1980s Scottish literature enjoyed another major revival, particularly associated with a group of Glasgow writers including Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...

. Scottish poets that emerged in the same period included Carol Anne Duffy, who was named as first Scott to be UK Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

in May 2009.

Earliest literature from within modern Scotland

The people of northern Britain spoke forms of Celtic languages

Celtic languages

The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...

. Much of the earliest Welsh literature was actually composed in or near the country we now call Scotland, as Brythonic

Brythonic languages

speech (the ancestor of Welsh) was not then confined to Wales and Cornwall. While all modern scholarship indicates that the Picts

Pictish language

Pictish is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to have been spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages...

spoke a Brythonic language (based on surviving placenames, personal names and historical evidence), none of their literature seems to have survived into the modern era.

Some of the earliest literature known to have been composed in Scotland includes:

Brythonic
Brythonic languages
The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...

(Old Welsh):
- The Gododdin
  Y Gododdin
  Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth...
  
  (attributed to Aneirin), c. 6th century
- The Battle of Gwen Ystrad (attributed to Taliesin
  Taliesin
  Taliesin was an early British poet of the post-Roman period whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the Book of Taliesin...
  
  ), late 6th century.
Gaelic:
- Elegy for St Columba by Dallan Forgaill, c. 597.
- In Praise of St Columba by Beccan mac Luigdech of Rum, c. 677.
Latin:
- Prayer for Protection (attributed to St Mugint), c. mid-6th century.
- Altus Prosator ("The High Creator", attributed to St Columba), c. 597.
Old English
- The Dream of the Rood
  Dream of the Rood
  The Dream of the Rood is one of the earliest Christian poems in the corpus of Old English literature and an example of the genre of dream poetry. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. Rood is from the Old English rod "pole", specifically "crucifix"...
  
  , c. 700 (the only surviving fragment of Northumbrian
  Northumbrian (Anglo-Saxon)
  Northumbrian was a dialect of the Old English language spoken in the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Together with Mercian, Kentish and West Saxon, it forms one of the sub-categories of Old English devised and employed by modern scholars....
  
  Old English from early Medieval Scotland).

The high middle ages

Before the reign of David I

David I of Scotland

David I or Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim was a 12th-century ruler who was Prince of the Cumbrians and later King of the Scots...

(1124–53) brought Norman and Anglo-French culture to the court, the Scots possessed a flourishing literary elite who regularly produced texts in both Gaelic and Latin that were frequently transmitted to Ireland and elsewhere. A Gaelic literary elite survived in the eastern Scottish lowlands, in places such as Loch Leven

Loch Leven

Loch Leven is a fresh water loch in Perth and Kinross council area, central Scotland.Roughly triangular, the loch is about 6 km at its longest. The burgh of Kinross lies at its western end. Loch Leven Castle lies on an island a short way offshore...

and Brechin

Brechin

Brechin is a former royal burgh in Angus, Scotland. Traditionally Brechin is often described as a city because of its cathedral and its status as the seat of a pre-Reformation Roman Catholic diocese , but that status has not been officially recognised in the modern era...

into the 13th century, It is possible that more Middle Irish literature was written in medieval Scotland than is often thought, but has not survived because the Gaelic literary establishment of eastern Scotland died out before the 14th century. Thomas Owen Clancy has argued that the Lebor Bretnach, the so-called "Irish Nennius," was written in Scotland, and probably at the monastery in Abernethy, but this text survives only from manuscripts preserved in Ireland. Other literary work which has survived include that of the prolific poet Gille Brighde Albanach. About 1218, Gille Brighde wrote a poem — Heading for Damietta — on his experiences of the Fifth Crusade

Fifth Crusade

The Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....

.

In the 13th century, French flourished as a literary language

Literary language

A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...

, and produced the Roman de Fergus
Roman de Fergus
The Roman de Fergus is an Arthurian romance written in Old French probably at the very beginning of the 13th century, by a very well educated author who named himself Guillaume li Clers...

, the earliest piece of non-Celtic vernacular

Vernacular

A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...

literature to survive from Scotland. Many other stories in the Arthurian Cycle, written in French and preserved only outside Scotland, are thought by some scholars (D.D.R. Owen for instance) to have been written in Scotland. There is no extant literature in the English language in this era. There is some Norse literature from areas of Scandinavian settlement, such as the Northern Isles

Northern Isles

The Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...

and the Western Isles. The famous Orkneyinga Saga
Orkneyinga saga
The Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...

however, although it pertains to the Earldom of Orkney

Earldom of Orkney

The Earldom of Orkney was a Norwegian dignity in Scotland which had its origins in the Viking period. The title of Earl of Orkney was passed down the same family line through to the Middle Ages....

, was written in Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

.

In addition to French, Latin too was a literary language, with works that include the "Inchcolm Antiphoner" and the "Carmen de morte Sumerledi", a poem which exults triumphantly the victory of the citizens of Glasgow over Somailre mac Gilla Brigte

Somerled

Somerled was a military and political leader of the Scottish Isles in the 12th century who was known in Gaelic as rí Innse Gall . His father was Gillebride...

. What is arguably the most important medieval work written in Scotland, the Vita Columbae, was also written in Latin.

Late medieval Anglo-Scottish literature

The first surviving major text in Early Scots

Early Scots

literature is John Barbour's Brus
The Brus
The Brus is a long narrative poem of just under 14,000 octosyllabic lines composed by John Barbour which gives a historic and chivalric account of the actions of Robert the Bruce and the Black Douglas in the Scottish Wars of Independence during a period from the circumstances leading up the English...

(1375), composed under the patronage of Robert II and telling the story in epic poetry of Robert I's actions before the English invasion till the end of the war of independence. The work was extremely popular among the Scots-speaking aristocracy and Barbour is referred to as the father of Scots poetry, holding a similar place to his contemporary Chaucer in England. In the early 15th century these were followed by Andrew of Wyntoun

Andrew of Wyntoun

Andrew Wyntoun, known as Andrew of Wyntoun was a Scottish poet, a canon and prior of Loch Leven on St Serf's Inch and later, a canon of St...

's verse Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland and Blind Harry

Blind Harry

Blind Harry , also known as Harry, Hary or Henry the Minstrel, is renowned as the author of The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, also known as The Wallace...

's The Wallace
The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace
The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, also known as The Wallace, is a long "romantic biographical" poem by the fifteenth century Scottish makar of the name Blind Harry probably at some time in the decade before 1488...

, which blended historical romance

Romance (genre)

As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...

with the verse chronicle

Chronicle

Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...

. They were probably influenced by Scots versions of popular French romances that were also produced in the period, including The Buik of Alexander
The Buik of Alexander
The Buik of Alexander is a short title for the two known Scots versions of the Alexander romance stories — a genre which was common in Medieval European literature, particularly France from the 12th century onwards, and the British Isles in the 14th and 15th centuries...

, Launcelot o the Laik
Lancelot
Sir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...

and The Porteous of Noblenes by Gibert Hay.

Much Middle Scots literature was produced by makars, poets with links to the royal court, which included James I

James I of Scotland

James I, King of Scots , was the son of Robert III and Annabella Drummond. He was probably born in late July 1394 in Dunfermline as youngest of three sons...

(who wrote The Kingis Quair
The Kingis Quair
The Kingis Quair is a fifteenth-century poem attributed to James I of Scotland. It is semi-autobiographical in nature, describing the King's capture by the English in 1406 on his way to France and his subsequent imprisonment by Henry IV of England and his successors, Henry V and Henry VI...

). Many of the makars had university education and so were also connected with the Kirk. However, Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris
Lament for the Makaris
I that in Heill wes and Gladnes, also known as The Lament for the Makaris, is a poem in the form of a danse macabre by the Scottish poet William Dunbar...

(c.1505) provides evidence of a wider tradition of secular writing outside of Court and Kirk now largely lost. Before the advent of printing in Scotland, writers such as Robert Henryson

Robert Henryson

Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities...

, William Dunbar

William Dunbar

William Dunbar was a Scottish poet. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie , where, too, it is hinted that he was a member of the noble house of Dunbar....

, Walter Kennedy

Walter Kennedy

Walter Kennedy was a Scottish makar associated with the renaissance court of James IV. He is perhaps best known as the defendant against William Dunbar in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie, but his surviving works clearly show him to have been an accomplished "master" in many genres...

and Gavin Douglas

Gavin Douglas

Gavin Douglas was a Scottish bishop, makar and translator. Although he had an important political career, it is for his poetry that he is now chiefly remembered. His principal pioneering achievement was the Eneados, a full and faithful vernacular translation of the Aeneid of Virgil and the first...

have been seen as leading a golden age in Scottish poetry.

In the late 15th century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. Although there are earlier fragments of original Scots prose, such as the Auchinleck Chronicle, the first complete surviving work includes John Ireland's The Meroure of Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s, including The Book of the Law of Armys and the Order of Knychthode and the treatise Secreta Secetorum
Secretum Secretorum
Secretum secretorum is a medieval treatise also known as Secret of Secrets, or The Book of the Secret of Secrets, or in Arabic Kitab sirr al-asrar, or the Book of the science of government: on the good ordering of statecraft...

, an Arabic work believed to be Aristotle's advice to Alexander the Great. The landmark work in the reign of James IV

James IV of Scotland

James IV was King of Scots from 11 June 1488 to his death. He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but his reign ended with the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field, where he became the last monarch from not only Scotland, but also from all...

was Gavin Douglas

Gavin Douglas

's version of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

, the Eneados
Eneados
The Eneados is a Middle Scots translation of Virgil's Aeneid, completed by Gavin Douglas in 1513. It is the first complete translation of any major work of classical antiquity into an Anglic language...

, which was the first complete translation of a major classical text in an Anglian language, finished in 1513, but overshadowed by the disaster at Flodden.

Early modern literature

As a patron of poets and authors James V

James V of Scotland

James V was King of Scots from 9 September 1513 until his death, which followed the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss...

supported William Stewart and John Bellenden

John Bellenden

John Bellenden or Ballantyne of Moray was a Scottish writer of the 16th century.He was born towards the close of the 15th century, and educated at St. Andrews and Paris. At the request of James V he translated Hector Boece's Historia Gentis Scotorum...

, who translated the Latin History of Scotland compiled in 1527 by Hector Boece

Hector Boece

Hector Boece , known in Latin as Hector Boecius or Boethius, was a Scottish philosopher and first Principal of King's College in Aberdeen, a predecessor of the University of Aberdeen.-Biography:He was born in Dundee where he attended school...

, into verse and prose. Sir David Lindsay of the Mount

David Lyndsay

Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, was a Scottish Lord Lyon and poet of the 16th century, whose works reflect the spirit of the Renaissance.-Biography:...

the Lord Lyon, the head of the Lyon Court and diplomat, was a prolific poet. He produced an interlude at Linlithgow Palace thought to be a version of his play The Thrie Estaitis in 1540, the first surviving full Scottish play, which satirised the corruption of church and state.

In the 1580s and 1590s James VI promoted the literature of the country of his birth. His treatise, Some Rules and Cautions to be Observed and Eschewed in Scottish Prosody, published in 1584 when he was aged 18, was both a poetic manual and a description of the poetic tradition in his mother tongue, Scots

Middle Scots

Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 13th century its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English...

, to which he applied Renaissance principles. He became patron and member of a loose circle of Scottish Jacobean

Jacobean era

The Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I...

court poets and musicians, the Castalian Band

Castalian Band

, which included William Fowler and Alexander Montgomerie

Alexander Montgomerie

Alexander Montgomerie , Scottish Jacobean courtier and poet, or makar, born in Ayrshire. He was one of the principal members of the Castalian Band, a circle of poets in the court of James VI in the 1580s which included the king himself. Montgomerie was for a time in favour as one of the king's...

, the latter being a favourite of the King. By the late 1590s his championing of his native Scottish tradition was to some extent diffused by the prospect of inheriting of the English throne, and some courtier poets who followed the king to London after 1603, such as William Alexander, began to anglicise their written language. James's characteristic role as active literary participant and patron in the Scottish court made him a defining figure for English Renaissance poetry and drama, which would reach a pinnacle of achievement in his reign, but his patronage for the high style

Stylistics (linguistics)

Stylistics is the study and interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. As a discipline it links literary criticism and linguistics, but has no autonomous domain of its own...

in his own Scottish tradition largely became sidelined.

The Scottish ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

tradition can be traced back to the early 17th century. Francis James Child

Francis James Child

Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of folk songs known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry...

's compilation, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–1898) contains many examples, such as The Elfin Knight
The Elfin Knight
"The Elfin Knight" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad of which there are many versions, all dealing with supernatural occurrences, and the commission to perform impossible tasks.-Synopsis:...

(first printed around 1610) and Lord Randal. In this period, Scotland began to see more anglicisation

Anglicisation

Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...

among some social classes, although Lowland Scots

Scots language

was still spoken by the vast majority of the population of the Lowlands. This was the time when many of the oral ballads from the borders and the North East began to be written down. Literary writers of the period include Robert Sempill

Robert Sempill

Robert Sempill , Scottish ballad-writer, was in all probability a cadet of illegitimate birth of the noble house of Sempill or Semple.Very little is known of Sempill's life. He appears to have spent some time in Paris...

(c.1595-1665), Lady Wardlaw and Lady Grizel Baillie.

18th century to the 19th century

Although after union with England, Scotland increasingly adopted English language and wider cultural norms, its literature developed a distinct national identity and began to enjoy an international reputation. Allan Ramsay

Allan Ramsay (poet)

Allan Ramsay was a Scottish poet , playwright, publisher, librarian and wig-maker.-Life and career:...

(1686-1758) laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, as well as leading the trend for pastoral poetry, helping to develop the Habbie stanza as a poetic form. James Macpherson

James Macpherson

James Macpherson was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.-Early life:...

was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, claiming to have found poetry written by Ossian

Ossian

, he published translations that acquired international popularity, being proclaimed as a Celtic equivalent of the Classical

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

epics

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

. Fingal written in 1762 was speedily translated into many European languages, and its deep appreciation of natural beauty and the melancholy tenderness of its treatment of the ancient legend did more than any single work to bring about the Romantic movement

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

in European, and especially in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, literature, influencing Herder and Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

. Eventually it became clear that the poems were not direct translations from the Gaelic, but flowery adaptations made to suit the aesthetic expectations of his audience.

Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

and Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

were highly influenced by the Ossian cycle. Burns, an Ayrshire poet and lyricist, is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and a major figure in the Romantic movement. As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

from across Scotland, often revising or adapting

Literary adaptation

Literary adaptation is the adapting of a literary source to another genre or medium, such as a film, a stage play, or even ace video game...

them. His poem (and song) "Auld Lang Syne

Auld Lang Syne

"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song . It is well known in many countries, especially in the English-speaking world; its traditional use being to celebrate the start of the New Year at the stroke of midnight...

" is often sung at Hogmanay

Hogmanay

Hogmanay is the Scots word for the last day of the year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner...

(the last day of the year), and "Scots Wha Hae

Scots Wha Hae

Scots Wha Hae is a patriotic song of Scotland which served for centuries as an unofficial national anthem of the country, but has lately been largely supplanted by Scotland the Brave and Flower of Scotland....

" served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem

National anthem

A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...

of the country. Scott began as a poet and also collected and published Scottish ballads. His first prose work, Waverley

Waverley (novel)

Waverley is an 1814 historical novel by Sir Walter Scott. Initially published anonymously in 1814 as Scott's first venture into prose fiction, Waverley is often regarded as the first historical novel. It became so popular that Scott's later novels were advertised as being "by the author of...

in 1814, is often called the first historical novel

Historical novel

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

. It launched a highly successful career that probably more than any other figure helped define and popularise Scottish cultural identity.

In the late 19th century, a number of Scottish-born authors achieved international reputations. Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

's work included the urban Gothic

Urban Gothic

Urban Gothic was a horror based series of short stories shown on Five running for two series between May 2000 and December 2001. Filmed on a comparatively low budget, it nonetheless acquired a cult following despite its late air time and the patchy coverage of Five...

novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), and played a major part in developing the historical adventure in books like Kidnapped
Kidnapped (novel)
Kidnapped is a historical fiction adventure novel by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. Written as a "boys' novel" and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886, the novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis...

and Treasure Island
Treasure Island
Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...

. Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

's Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...

stories helped found the tradition of detective fiction. The "kailyard tradition

Kailyard school

The Kailyard school of Scottish fiction was developed about the 1890s as a reaction against what was seen as increasingly coarse writing representing Scottish life complete with all its blemishes. It has been considered as being an overly sentimental representation of rural life, cleansed of real...

" at the end of the century, brought elements of fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

and folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

back into fashion as can be seen in the work of figures like J. M. Barrie

J. M. Barrie

, most famous for his creation of Peter Pan

Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...

and George MacDonald

George MacDonald

whose works including Phantasies
Phantasies
Phantasies is the name of a series of animated cartoons produced by the Screen Gems studio for Columbia Pictures from 1939 to 1946. The series, featuring characters such as Willoughby Wren and Superkatt, is notable as being the last theatrical animated series produced in black-and-white...

played a major part in the creation of the fantasy

Fantasy

genre.

20th century to the present

In the early 20th century there was a new surge of activity in Scottish literature, influenced by modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

and resurgent nationalism, known as the Scottish Renaissance. The leading figure in the movement was Hugh MacDiarmid

Hugh MacDiarmid

(the pseudonym of Christopher Murray Grieve). MacDiarmid attempted to revive the Scots language as a medium for serious literature in poetic works including "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is a long poem by Hugh MacDiarmid written in Scots and published in 1926. It is composed as a form of monologue with influences from stream of consciousness genres of writing...

" (1936), developing a form of Synthetic Scots that combined different regional dialects and archaic terms. Other writers that emerged in this period, and are often treated as part of the movement, include the poets Edwin Muir

Edwin Muir

Edwin Muir was an Orcadian poet, novelist and translator born on a farm in Deerness on the Orkney Islands. He was remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry in plain language with few stylistic preoccupations....

and William Soutar

William Soutar

William Soutar was a Scottish poet, born 1898. He served in the navy in World War I, and afterwards studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he encountered the work of Hugh MacDiarmid. This led to a radical alteration in his work, and he became a leading poet of the Scottish Literary...

, the novelists Neil Gunn, George Blake

George Blake

George Blake is a former British spy known for having been a double agent in the service of the Soviet Union. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966 and fled to the USSR...

, Nan Shepherd

Nan Shepherd

Nan Shepherd was a Scottish novelist and poet.-Life:She attended Aberdeen High School for Girls and graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1915, subsequently lecturing for the Aberdeen College of Education.After she retired in 1956 she edited the Aberdeen University review...

, A J Cronin, Naomi Mitchison

Naomi Mitchison

Naomi May Margaret Mitchison, CBE was a Scottish novelist and poet. She was appointed CBE in 1981; she was also entitled to call herself Lady Mitchison, CBE since 5 October 1964 .- Childhood and family background :Naomi Margaret Haldane was...

, Eric Linklater

Eric Linklater

Eric Robert Russell Linklater was a British writer, known for more than 20 novels, as well as short stories, travel writing and autobiography, and military history.-Life:...

and Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell , a Scottish writer.-Biography:...

, and the playwright James Bridie

James Bridie

James Bridie was the pseudonym of a Scottish playwright, screenwriter and surgeon whose real name was Osborne Henry Mavor....

. All were born within a fifteen-year period (1887 and 1901) and, although they cannot be described as members of a single school they all pursued an exploration of identity, rejecting nostalgia and parochialism and engaging with social and political issues.

Some writers that emerged after the Second World War followed MacDiarmid by writing in Scots, including Robert Garioch

Robert Garioch

Robert Garioch Sutherland, , was a Scottish poet and translator. His poetry was written almost exclusively in the Scots language, he was a key member in the literary revival of the language in the mid-20th century...

and Sydney Goodsir Smith

Sydney Goodsir Smith

Sydney Goodsir Smith was a Scottish poet, artist, dramatist and novelist. He wrote poetry in literary Scots often referred to as Lallans, and was a major figure of the Scottish Renaissance....

. Others demonstrated a greater interest in English language poetry, among them Norman MacCaig

Norman MacCaig

Norman MacCaig was a Scottish poet. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.-Life:...

, George Bruce

George Bruce

George Bruce may refer to:*George Bruce , Two Years Before the Mast *George G. Bruce, American music author*George Barclay Bruce, British civil engineer...

and Maurice Lindsay

Maurice Lindsay

Maurice Lindsay CBE was a Scottish broadcaster, writer and poet. He was born in Glasgow.After serving in World War II he became a radio broadcaster, also editing the 1946 anthology Modern Scottish Poetry, and writing music criticism. He later was Programme Controller at Border Television.His...

. George Mackay Brown

George Mackay Brown

George Mackay Brown , was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist, whose work has a distinctly Orcadian character...

from Orkney, and and Iain Crichton Smith from Lewis, wrote both poetry and prose fiction shaped by their distinctive island backgrounds. The Glaswegian poet Edwin Morgan became known for translations of works from a wide range of European languages. He was also the first Scots Makar (the official national poet), appointed by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004. Many major Scottish post-war novelists, such as Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark

Dame Muriel Spark, DBE was an award-winning Scottish novelist. In 2008 The Times newspaper named Spark in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Early life:...

, James Kennaway

James Kennaway

James Kennaway was a Scottish writer. He was born in Auchterarder in Perthshire and attended Glenalmond College.-Career:...

, Alexander Trocchi

Alexander Trocchi

Alexander Whitelaw Robertson Trocchi was a Scottish novelist.-Early career:Trocchi was born in Glasgow to a Scottish mother and Italian father. After working as a seaman on the Murmansk convoys, he attended University of Glasgow. On graduation he obtained a traveling grant that enabled him to...

, Jessie Kesson

Jessie Kesson

Jessie Kesson , born as Jessie Grant McDonald, was a Scottish novelist, playwright and radio producer.-Life:...

and Robin Jenkins spent much or most of their lives outside Scotland, but often dealt with Scottish themes, as in Spark's Edinburgh-set The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a short book by novelist Muriel Spark, the best known of her works. It first saw publication in The New Yorker magazine and was published as a book by Macmillan in 1961. The character of Miss Jean Brodie brought Spark international fame and brought her into the...

(1961) and Kennaway's script for the film Tunes of Glory
Tunes of Glory
Tunes of Glory is a 1960 British film directed by Ronald Neame, based on the novel and screenplay by James Kennaway. The film is a "dark psychological drama" centring on events in a Scottish Highland regimental barracks in the period following World War II...

(1956). Successful mass-market works included the action novels of Alistair MacLean

Alistair MacLean

Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare, all three having been made into successful films...

, and the historical fiction of Dorothy Dunnett

Dorothy Dunnett

Dorothy Dunnett OBE was a Scottish historical novelist. She is best known for her six-part series about Francis Crawford of Lymond, The Lymond Chronicles, which she followed with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò...

. A younger generation of novelists that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s included Shena Mackay

Shena Mackay

Shena Mackay FRSL , is a Scottish novelist born in Edinburgh. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1996 for The Orchard on Fire.-Biography:...

, Alan Spence

Alan Spence

Alan Spence is a Scottish writer and is Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, where he is also artistic director of the annual WORD Festival...

, Allan Massie

Allan Massie

Allan Massie is a well-known Scottish journalist, sports writer and novelist.-Early life:Born in 1938 in Singapore, where his father was a rubber planter for Sime Darby, Massie spent his childhood in Aberdeenshire...

and the work of William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney

William McIlvanney is a writer of crime stories, novels, and poetry. McIlvanney is a champion of gritty yet poetic literature; his works Laidlaw, The Papers of Tony Veitch, and Walking Wounded are all known for their portrayal of Glasgow in the 1970s.- Life and career :McIlvanney was born in the...

.

From the 1980s Scottish literature enjoyed another major revival, particularly associated with a group of Glasgow writers focused around meetings in the house of critic, poet and teacher Philip Hobsbaum

Philip Hobsbaum

Philip Dennis Hobsbaum was a British teacher, poet and critic.-Life:Hobsbaum was born into a Polish Jewish family in London, and brought up in Bradford, in Yorkshire. He read English at Downing College, Cambridge, where he was taught and heavily influenced by F. R. Leavis...

. Also important in the movement was Peter Kravitz

Peter Kravitz

Peter Kravitz is a figure in the Scottish literary scene. he was born in London, England, but has lived most of his life in Edinburgh. He is best known for editing Contemporary Scottish Fiction, which has been reprinted by both Picador and Faber, and was seminal in bringing new Scottish writers to...

, editor of Polygon Books. Members of the group that would come to prominence as writers included James Kelman

James Kelman

James Kelman is an influential writer of novels, short stories, plays and political essays. His novel A Disaffection was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1989...

, Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years...

, Liz Lochhead

Liz Lochhead

Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire.-Background:After attending Glasgow School of Art, Lochhead lectured in fine art for eight years before becoming a professional writer....

, Tom Leonard

Tom Leonard

Tom Leonard or Thomas Leonard may refer to:*Tom Leonard *Tom Leonard , Fianna Fáil politician from Dublin, Ireland*Tom Leonard , Scottish poet*Thomas J...

and Aonghas MacNeacail

Aonghas MacNeacail

Aonghas MacNeacail , nickname Aonghas dubh or black Aonghas) is a contemporary writer in the Scottish Gaelic language. Born and brought up in the Isle of Skye, he was registered at birth as Angus Nicolson, but has changed his official name to his native Gaelic...

. In the 1990s major, prize winning, Scottish novels that emerged from this movement included Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...

's Trainspotting
Trainspotting (novel)
Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is written in the form of short chapters narrated in the first person by various residents of Leith, Edinburgh, who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are...

(1993), Warner’s Morvern Caller (1995), Gray’s Poor Things
Poor Things
Poor Things is a novel by Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, published in 1992. It won the Whitbread Novel Award in 1992 and the Guardian Fiction Prize for 1992....

(1992) and Kelman’s How Late It Was, How Late
How late it was, how late
How late it was, how late is a 1994 stream of consciousness novel written by Scottish writer James Kelman. The Glasgow-centred work is written in a working class Scottish dialect, and follows Sammy, a shoplifter and ex-convict.-Plot summary:...

(1994). These works were linked by a sometimes overtly political reaction to Thatcherism

Thatcherism

Thatcherism describes the conviction politics, economic and social policy, and political style of the British Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher, who was leader of her party from 1975 to 1990...

that explored marginal areas of experience and used vivid vernacular language (including expletives and Scots dialect). Scottish crime fiction has been a major area of growth with the success of novelists including Val McDermid

Val McDermid

Val McDermid is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of suspense novels starring her most famous creation, Dr. Tony Hill.-Biography:...

, Frederic Lindsay

Frederic Lindsay

Frederic Lindsay is a Scottish crime writer, born in Glasgow and living in Edinburgh. He has been a full-time writer since 1979 and previously worked as a lecturer, teacher and library assistant...

, Christopher Brookmyre

Christopher Brookmyre

Christopher Brookmyre is a Scottish novelist whose novels mix comedy, politics, social comment and action with a strong narrative. He has been referred to as a Tartan Noir author...

, Quentin Jardine, Denise Mina

Denise Mina

Denise Mina is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia "Paddy" Meehan, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir, she has also dabbled in comic book writing, having recently written...

and particularly the success of Edinburgh’s Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin, OBE, DL , is a Scottish crime writer. His best known books are the Inspector Rebus novels. He has also written several pieces of literary criticism.-Background:He attended Beath High School, Cowdenbeath...

and his Inspector Rebus

Inspector Rebus

The Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Ian Rankin. The novels, centred on the title character Detective Inspector John Rebus, are mostly based in and around Edinburgh.-Content and style:...

novels. This period also saw the emergence of a new generation of Scottish poets that became leading figures on the UK stage, including Don Paterson

Don Paterson

Don Paterson, OBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet, writer and musician.-Background:Paterson was born in Dundee. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1990 and his poem A Private Bottling won the Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition in 1993. He was included on the list of 20 poets chosen for the...

, Robert Crawford

Robert Crawford (Scottish poet)

Robert Crawford FRSE FRA is a Scottish poet, scholar and critic. He is currently Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.-Early life:...

, Kathleen Jamie

Kathleen Jamie

Kathleen Jamie FRSL is a Scottish poet, raised in Currie, Edinburgh. She gained an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh....

and Carol Anne Duffy. Glasgow-born Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy, CBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009...

was named as Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate

A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...

in May 2009, the first woman, the first Scot and the first openly gay poet to take the post.

External links

The Spread of Scottish Printing, digitised items between 1508 and 1900

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Earliest literature from within modern Scotland

The high middle ages

Late medieval Anglo-Scottish literature

Early modern literature

18th century to the 19th century

20th century to the present

See also

External links