Scots-language literature is literature, including poetry, prose and drama, written in theScots language in its many forms and derivatives.Middle Scots became the dominant language of Scotland in the late Middle Ages. The first surviving major text in Scots literature isJohn Barbour'sBrus (1375). Someballads may date back to the thirteenth century, but were not recorded until the eighteenth century. In the early fifteenth century Scots historical works includedAndrew of Wyntoun's verseOrygynale Cronykil of Scotland andBlind Harry'sThe Wallace. Much Middle Scots literature was produced bymakars, poets with links to the royal court, which includedJames I, who wrote the extended poemThe Kingis Quair. Writers such asWilliam Dunbar,Robert Henryson,Walter Kennedy andGavin Douglas have been seen as creating a golden age in Scottish poetry. In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. The first complete surviving work isJohn Ireland'sThe Meroure of Wyssdome (1490). There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s. The landmark work in the reign ofJames IV wasGavin Douglas's version ofVirgil'sAeneid.
James V supported William Stewart andJohn Bellenden, who translated the LatinHistory of Scotland compiled in 1527 byHector Boece, into verse and prose.David Lyndsay wrote elegiac narratives, romances and satires. From the 1550s cultural pursuits were limited by the lack of a royal court and theKirk heavily discouraged poetry that was not devotional. Nevertheless, poets from this period includedRichard Maitland of Lethington,John Rolland andAlexander Hume.Alexander Scott's use of short verse designed to be sung to music, opened the way for the Castilan poets ofJames VI's adult reign. who includedWilliam Fowler,John Stewart of Baldynneis, andAlexander Montgomerie. Plays in Scots included Lyndsay'sThe Thrie Estaitis, the anonymousThe Maner of the Cyring of ane Play andPhilotus. After his accession to the English throne, James VI increasingly favoured the language of southern England and the loss of the court as a centre of patronage in 1603 was a major blow to Scottish literature. The poets who followed the king to London began toanglicise their written language and only significant court poet to continue to work in Scotland after the king's departure wasWilliam Drummond of Hawthornden.
After theUnion in 1707 the use of Scots was discouraged.Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) is often described as leading a "vernacular revival" and he laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature. He was part of a community of poets working in Scots and English that includedWilliam Hamilton of Gilbertfield, Robert Crawford,Alexander Ross,William Hamilton of Bangour,Alison Rutherford Cockburn andJames Thomson. Also important wasRobert Fergusson.Robert Burns is widely regarded as thenational poet of Scotland, working in both Scots and English. His "Auld Lang Syne" is often sung atHogmanay, and "Scots Wha Hae" served for a long time as an unofficialnational anthem. Scottish poetry is often seen as entering a period of decline in the nineteenth century, with Scots-language poetry criticised for its use of parochial dialect. Conservative and anti-radicalBurns clubs sprang up around Scotland, filled with poets who fixated on the "Burns stanza" as a form. Scottish poetry has been seen as descending into infantalism as exemplified by the highly popularWhistle Binkie anthologies, leading into the sentimental parochialism of theKailyard school. Poets from the lower social orders who used Scots included the weaver-poetWilliam Thom.Walter Scott, the leading literary figure of the early nineteenth century, largely wrote in English, and Scots was confined to dialogue or interpolated narrative, in a model that would be followed by other novelists such asJohn Galt andRobert Louis Stevenson.James Hogg provided a Scots counterpart to the work of Scott.[1] However, popular Scottish newspapers regularly included articles and commentary in the vernacular and there was an interest in translations into Scots from other Germanic languages, such as Danish, Swedish and German, including those byRobert Jamieson andRobert Williams Buchanan.
In the early twentieth century there was a new surge of activity in Scottish literature, influenced bymodernism and resurgent nationalism, known as theScottish Renaissance. The leading figure in the movement wasHugh MacDiarmid who attempted to revive the Scots language as a medium for serious literature, developing a form ofSynthetic 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 poetsEdwin Muir andWilliam Soutar. Some writers that emerged after the Second World War followed MacDiarmid by writing in Scots, includingRobert Garioch,Sydney Goodsir Smith andEdwin Morgan, who became known for translations of works from a wide range of European languages.Alexander Gray is chiefly remembered for this translations into Scots from the German and Danish ballad traditions into Scots. Writers who reflected urban contemporary Scots includedDouglas Dunn,Tom Leonard andLiz Lochhead. The Scottish Renaissance increasingly concentrated on the novel.George Blake pioneered the exploration of the experiences of the working class. Lewis Grassic Gibbon produced one of the most important realisations of the ideas of the Scottish Renaissance in his trilogyA Scots Quair. Other writers that investigated the working class included James Barke andJ. F. Hendry. From the 1980s Scottish literature enjoyed another major revival, particularly associated with a group of Glasgow writers that includedAlasdair Gray andJames Kelman were among the first novelists to fully utilise a working class Scots voice as the main narrator.Irvine Welsh andAlan Warner both made use of vernacular language including expletives and words from the Scots language.
In the late Middle Ages,Middle Scots, often simply called English, became the dominant language of the country. It was derived largely fromOld English, with the addition of elements from Gaelic and French. Although resembling the language spoken in northern England, it became a distinct dialect from the late fourteenth century onwards.[2] It began to be adopted by the ruling elite as they gradually abandoned French. By the fifteenth century it was the language of government, with acts of parliament, council records and treasurer's accounts almost all using it from the reign ofJames I (1406–37) onwards. As a result, Gaelic, once dominant north of the Tay, began a steady decline.[2]
The first surviving major text in Scots literature isJohn Barbour'sBrus (1375), composed under the patronage ofRobert II and telling the story in epic poetry ofRobert I's actions before the English invasion until the end of thefirst war of independence.[3] 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 contemporaryChaucer in England.[4] Some Scotsballads may date back to the late medieval era and deal with events and people that can be traced back as far as the thirteenth century, including "Sir Patrick Spens" and "Thomas the Rhymer", but which are not known to have existed until they were collected and recorded in the eighteenth century.[5] They were probably composed and transmitted orally and only began to be written down and printed, often asbroadsides and as part ofchapbooks, later being recorded and noted in books by collectors includingRobert Burns andWalter Scott.[6] In the early fifteenth century Scots historical works includedAndrew of Wyntoun's verseOrygynale Cronykil of Scotland andBlind Harry'sThe Wallace, which blendedhistorical romance with theverse chronicle. They were probably influenced by Scots versions of popular French romances that were also produced in the period, includingThe Buik of Alexander,Launcelot o the Laik,The Porteous of Noblenes byGilbert Hay.[2]
Much Middle Scots literature was produced bymakars, poets with links to the royal court, which includedJames I, who wrote the extended poemThe Kingis Quair. Many of the makars had university education and so were also connected with theKirk. However,William Dunbar's (1460–1513)Lament for the Makaris (c. 1505) provides evidence of a wider tradition of secular writing outside of Court and Kirk now largely lost.[7] Writers such as Dunbar,Robert Henryson,Walter Kennedy andGavin Douglas have been seen as creating a golden age in Scottish poetry.[2] Major works includeRichard Holland's satire theBuke of the Howlat (c. 1448).[8] Dunbar produced satires, lyrics, invectives and dream visions that established the vernacular as a flexible medium for poetry of any kind.Robert Henryson (c. 1450-c. 1505), re-worked Medieval and Classical sources, such asChaucer andAesop in works such as hisTestament of Cresseid andThe Morall Fabillis.Gavin Douglas (1475–1522), who becameBishop of Dunkeld, injectedHumanist concerns and classical sources into his poetry.[9] Much of their work survives in a single collection. TheBannatyne Manuscript was collated byGeorge Bannatyne (1545–1608) around 1560 and contains the work of many Scots poets who would otherwise be unknown.[8]
In the late fifteenth century, Scots prose also began to develop as a genre. Although there are earlier fragments of original Scots prose, such as theAuchinleck Chronicle,[10] the first complete surviving work is John Ireland'sThe Meroure of Wyssdome (1490).[11] There were also prose translations of French books of chivalry that survive from the 1450s, includingThe Book of the Law of Armys and theOrder of Knychthode and the treatiseSecreta Secetorum, an Arabic work believed to be Aristotle's advice toAlexander the Great.[2] The landmark work in the reign ofJames IV wasGavin Douglas's version ofVirgil'sAeneid, theEneados, which was the first complete translation of a major classical text in anAnglic language, finished in 1513, but overshadowed by the disaster at Flodden in the same year.[2]
As a patron of poets and authorsJames V (r. 1513–42) supported William Stewart andJohn Bellenden, who translated the LatinHistory of Scotland compiled in 1527 byHector Boece, into verse and prose.[12]David Lyndsay (c. 1486 – 1555), diplomat and the head of theLyon Court, was a prolific poet. He wrote elegiac narratives, romances and satires.[9] From the 1550s, in the reign ofMary, Queen of Scots (r. 1542–67) and the minority of her sonJames VI (r. 1567–1625), cultural pursuits were limited by the lack of a royal court and by political turmoil. The Kirk, heavily influenced byCalvinism, also discouraged poetry that was not devotional in nature. Nevertheless, poets from this period includedRichard Maitland of Lethington (1496–1586), who produced meditative and satirical verses in the style of Dunbar;John Rolland (fl. 1530–75), who wrote allegorical satires in the tradition of Douglas and courtier and ministerAlexander Hume (c. 1556–1609), whose corpus of work includes nature poetry andepistolary verse.Alexander Scott's (?1520–82/3) use of short verse designed to be sung to music, opened the way for the Castilan poets of James VI's adult reign.[9]
From the mid sixteenth century, written Scots was increasingly influenced by the developingStandard English of Southern England due to developments in royal and political interactions with England.[13] The English supplied books and distributing Bibles and Protestant literature in theLowlands when they invaded in 1547.[14] With the increasing influence and availability of books printed in England, most writing in Scotland came to be done in the English fashion.[15] Leading figure of the Scottish ReformationJohn Knox was accused of being hostile to Scots because he wrote in a Scots-inflected English developed while in exile at the English court.[16]
In the 1580s and 1590s James VI strongly promoted the literature of the country of his birth in Scots. 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, to which he applied Renaissance principles.[17] He became patron and member of a loose circle of ScottishJacobean court poets and musicians, later called theCastalian Band, which includedWilliam Fowler (c. 1560 – 1612),John Stewart of Baldynneis (c. 1545 – c. 1605), andAlexander Montgomerie (c. 1550 – 1598).[18] They translated key Renaissance texts and produced poems using French forms, includingsonnets and short sonnets, for narrative, nature description, satire and meditations on love. Later poets that followed in this vein includedWilliam Alexander (c. 1567 – 1640), Alexander Craig (c. 1567 – 1627) andRobert Ayton (1570–1627).[9] By the late 1590s the king's championing of his native Scottish tradition was to some extent diffused by the prospect of inheriting of the English throne.[19]
In drama Lyndsay produced an interlude atLinlithgow Palace for the king and queen thought to be a version of his playThe Thrie Estaitis in 1540, which satirised the corruption of church and state, and which is the only complete play to survive from before the Reformation.[12] The anonymousThe Maner of the Cyring of ane Play (before 1568)[20] andPhilotus (published in London in 1603), are isolated examples of surviving plays. The latter is a vernacular Scots comedy of errors, probably designed for court performance forMary, Queen of Scots or James VI.[21]
Having extolled the virtues of Scots "poesie", after his accession to the English throne, James VI increasingly favoured the language of southern England. In 1611 the Kirk adopted the EnglishAuthorised King James Version of the Bible. In 1617 interpreters were declared no longer necessary in the port of London because Scots and Englishmen were now "not so far different bot ane understandeth ane uther". Jenny Wormald, describes James as creating a "three-tier system, with Gaelic at the bottom and English at the top".[22] The loss of the court as a centre of patronage in 1603 was a major blow to Scottish literature. A number of Scottish poets, including William Alexander, John Murray and Robert Aytoun accompanied the king to London, where they continued to write,[23] but they soon began toanglicise their written language.[24] James's characteristic role as active literary participant and patron in the English court made him a defining figure for English Renaissance poetry and drama, which would reach a pinnacle of achievement in his reign,[25] but his patronage for thehigh style in his own Scottish tradition largely became sidelined.[26] The only significant court poet to continue to work in Scotland after the king's departure wasWilliam Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649),[20] and he largely abandoned Scots for a form of court English.[27] The most influential Scottish literary figure of the mid-seventeenth century,Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty (1611 – c. 1660), who translatedThe Works of Rabelais, worked largely in English, only using occasional Scots for effect.[28] In the late seventeenth century it looked as if Scots might disappear as a literary language.[29]
After theUnion in 1707 and the shift of political power to England, the use of Scots was discouraged by many in authority and education.[30] Intellectuals of theScottish Enlightenment likeDavid Hume andAdam Smith, went to great lengths to get rid of every Scotticism from their writings.[31] Following such examples, many well-off Scots took to learning English through the activities of those such asThomas Sheridan, who in 1761 gave a series of lectures on Englishelocution. Charging aguinea at a time (about £200 in today's money,[32]) they were attended by over 300 men, and he was made afreeman of the City ofEdinburgh. Following this, some of the city's intellectuals formed theSelect Society for Promoting the Reading and Speaking of the English Language in Scotland. From such eighteenth-century activities grewScottish Standard English.[33] Scots remained the vernacular of many rural communities and the growing number of urban working class Scots.[34]
Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) was the most important literary figure of the era, often described as leading a "vernacular revival". He laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, publishingThe Ever Green (1724), a collection that included many major poetic works of the Stewart period.[35] He led the trend forpastoral poetry, helping to develop theHabbie stanza, which would be later be used by Robert Burns as apoetic form.[36] HisTea-Table Miscellany (1724–37) contained poems old Scots folk material, his own poems in the folk style and "gentilizings" of Scots poems in the English neo-classical style.[37] Ramsay was part of a community of poets working in Scots and English. These includedWilliam Hamilton of Gilbertfield (c. 1665 – 1751), Robert Crawford (1695–1733),Alexander Ross (1699–1784), the JacobiteWilliam Hamilton of Bangour (1704–1754), socialiteAlison Rutherford Cockburn (1712–1794), and poet and playwrightJames Thomson (1700–1748).[38] Also important wasRobert Fergusson (1750–1774), a largely urban poet, recognised in his short lifetime as the unofficial "laureate" of Edinburgh. His most famous work was his unfinished long poem,Auld Reekie (1773), dedicated to the life of the city. His borrowing from a variety of dialects prefigured the creation ofSynthetic Scots in the twentieth century[39] and he would be a major influence onRobert Burns.[40]
Burns (1759–1796), an Ayrshire poet and lyricist, is widely regarded as thenational poet of Scotland and a major figure in the Romantic movement. As well as making original compositions, Burns also collectedfolk songs from across Scotland, often revising oradapting them. His poem (and song) "Auld Lang Syne" is often sung atHogmanay (the last day of the year), and "Scots Wha Hae" served for a long time as an unofficialnational anthem of the country.[41] Burns's poetry drew upon a substantial familiarity with and knowledge ofClassical,Biblical, andEnglish literature, as well as the ScottishMakar tradition.[42] Burns was skilled in writing not only in theScots language but also in theScottish Englishdialect of theEnglish language. Some of his works, such as "Love and Liberty" (also known as "The Jolly Beggars"), are written in both Scots and English for various effects.[43] His themes includedrepublicanism,radicalism,Scottish patriotism,anticlericalism,class inequalities,gender roles, commentary on the Scottish Kirk of his time,Scottish cultural identity,poverty,sexuality, and the beneficial aspects of popular socialising.[44]
Scottish poetry is often seen as entering a period of decline in the nineteenth century, with Scots-language poetry criticised for its use of parochial dialect.[45] Conservative and anti-radicalBurns clubs sprang up around Scotland, filled with members that praised a sanitised version ofRobert Burns' life and work and poets who fixated on the "Burns stanza" as a form.[46] Scottish poetry has been seen as descending into infantalism as exemplified by the highly popularWhistle Binkie anthologies, which appeared 1830–90 and which notoriously included in one volume "Wee Willie Winkie" byWilliam Miler (1810–1872).[46] This tendency has been seen as leading late-nineteenth-century Scottish poetry into the sentimental parochialism of theKailyard school.[47] Poets from the lower social orders who used Scots included the weaver-poetWilliam Thom (1799–1848), whose his "A chieftain unknown to the Queen" (1843) combined simple Scots language with a social critique ofQueen Victoria's visit to Scotland.[45]
Walter Scott (1771–1832), the leading literary figure of the era began his career as a ballad collector and became the most popular poet in Britain and then its most successful novelist.[48] His works were largely written in English and Scots was largely confined to dialogue or interpolated narrative, in a model that would be followed by other novelists such asJohn Galt (1779–1839) and laterRobert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894).[46]James Hogg (1770–1835) worked largely in Scots, providing a counterpart to Scott's work in English. Popular Scottish newspapers regularly included articles and commentary in the vernacular.[49]
There was an interest in translations into Scots from other Germanic languages, such as Danish, Swedish and German. These includedRobert Jamieson's (c. 1780–1844)Popular Ballads And Songs From Tradition, Manuscripts And Scarce Editions With Translations Of Similar Pieces From The Ancient Danish Language andIllustrations of Northern Antiquities (1814) andRobert Williams Buchanan's (1841–1901)Ballad Stories of the Affections (1866).[50]
In the early twentieth century there was a new surge of activity in Scottish literature, influenced bymodernism and resurgent nationalism, known as the Scottish Renaissance.[51] The leading figure in the movement wasHugh MacDiarmid (the pseudonym of Christopher Murray Grieve, 1892–1978). MacDiarmid attempted to revive the Scots language as a medium for serious literature in poetic works including "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" (1936), developing a form of Synthetic Scots that combined different regional dialects and archaic terms.[51] Other writers that emerged in this period, and are often treated as part of the movement, include the poetsEdwin Muir (1887–1959) andWilliam Soutar (1898–1943), who pursued an exploration of identity, rejecting nostalgia and parochialism and engaging with social and political issues.[51] Some writers that emerged after the Second World War followed MacDiarmid by writing in Scots, includingRobert Garioch (1909–1981) andSydney Goodsir Smith (1915–1975). The Glaswegian poetEdwin Morgan (1920–2010) became known for translations of works from a wide range of European languages. He was also the firstScots Makar (the officialnational poet), appointed by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004.[52]Alexander Gray was an academic and poet, but is chiefly remembered for this translations into Scots from the German and Danish ballad traditions into Scots, includingArrows. A Book of German Ballads and Folksongs Attempted in Scots (1932) andFour-and-Forty. A Selection of Danish Ballads Presented in Scots (1954).[53]
The generation of poets that grew up in the postwar period includedDouglas Dunn (born 1942), whose work has often seen a coming to terms with class and national identity within the formal structures of poetry and commenting on contemporary events, as inBarbarians (1979) andNorthlight (1988). His most personal work is contained in the collection ofElegies (1985), which deal with the death of his first wife from cancer.[54]Tom Leonard (born 1944), works in theGlaswegian dialect, pioneering the working class voice in Scottish poetry.[55]Liz Lochhead (born 1947) also explored the lives of working-class people of Glasgow, but added an appreciation of female voices within a sometimes male dominated society.[54] She also adapted classic texts into Scots, with versions ofMolière'sTartuffe (1985) andThe Misanthrope (1973–2005), while Edwin Morgan translatedCyrano de Bergerac (1992).[56]
The Scottish Renaissance increasingly concentrated on the novel, particularly after the 1930s when Hugh MacDiarmid was living in isolation in Shetland and many of these were written in English and not Scots. However, George Blake pioneered the exploration of the experiences of the working class in his major works such asThe Shipbuilders (1935). Lewis Grassic Gibbon, the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell, produced one of the most important realisations of the ideas of the Scottish Renaissance in his trilogyA Scots Quair (Sunset Song, 1932,Cloud Howe, 1933 andGrey Granite, 1934), which mixed different Scots dialects with the narrative voice.[57] Other works that investigated the working class included James Barke's (1905–1958),Major Operation (1936) andThe Land of the Leal (1939) andJ. F. Hendry's (1912–1986)Fernie Brae (1947).[57]
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 teacherPhilip Hobsbaum (1932–2005). Also important in the movement wasPeter Kravitz, editor ofPolygon Books.[51] These includedAlasdair Gray (born 1934), whose epicLanark (1981) built on theworking class novel to explore realistic and fantastic narratives.James Kelman’s (born 1946)The Busconductor Hines (1984) andA Disaffection (1989) were among the first novels to fully utilise a working class Scots voice as the main narrator.[57] In the 1990s major, prize winning, Scottish novels that emerged from this movement included Gray'sPoor Things (1992), which investigated the capitalist and imperial origins of Scotland in an inverted version of theFrankenstein myth,[57]Irvine Welsh's (born 1958),Trainspotting (1993), which dealt with the drug addiction in contemporary Edinburgh,Alan Warner’s (born 1964)Morvern Callar (1995), dealing with death and authorship and Kelman'sHow Late It Was, How Late (1994), astream of consciousness novel dealing with a life of petty crime.[51] These works were linked by a reaction toThatcherism that was sometimes overtly political, and explored marginal areas of experience using vivid vernacular language (including expletives and Scots dialect).[51]But'n'Ben A-Go-Go (2000) byMatthew Fitt is the firstcyberpunk novel written entirely in Scots.[58] One major outlet for literature inLallans (Lowland Scots) isLallans, the magazine of the Scots Language Society.[59]
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