Scottish Literature by Alan Riach sampler

SCOTTISH
LITERATURE
an introduction
ALAN RIACH

Alan Riach is a poet and teacher. Born in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, in 1957, he
studied English literature at Cambridge University from 1976 to 1979 and
completed his PhD in the Department of Scottish Literature at Glasgow
University in 1986. His academic career has included positions as a research
fellow, lecturer, Associate Professor and Pro-Dean in the Faculty of Arts at
the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and he has given scholarly lectures,
keynote addresses and public talks and poetry readings at universities, festivals
and other venues internationally. He has introduced and taught Scottish and
other literatures in four continents and two hemispheres, from Bengal to
Bucharest, from Singapore to Montenegro, the USA, Australia, China, France,
Poland and Spain. The publication of Scottish Literature: an introduction in
the centenary year of the first appearance in print of Hugh MacDiarmid and on
the 10th anniversary of the long overdue formal provision of the literature of
Scotland into Scottish schools, consolidates a working lifetime’s commitment
to the subject he professes, and celebrates its subversive endurance despite
institutional neglect and hostility. It was prompted by a conversation with
Paul Henderson Scott of the Saltire Society in 2005 and brings together the
astonishing diversity of Scotland’s national literature, in language, geography,
historical periods, literary expressiveness and sheer quality.

Other books by Alan Riach:
Poetry
This Folding Map
An Open Return
First & Last Songs
From the Vision of Hell: An Extract of Dante
Clearances
Homecoming
Wild Blue: Selected Poems
The Winter Book
Translations
Duncan Ban MacIntyre, Praise of Ben Dorain
Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, The Birlinn of Clan Ranald
Criticism
Hugh MacDiarmid’s Epic Poetry
The Poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid
Representing Scotland in Literature, Popular Culture and Iconography: The Masks
of the Modern Nation
Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland (with
Alexander Moffat and Linda MacDonald-Lewis)
Arts of Independence: The Cultural Argument and Why It Matters Most (with
Alexander Moffat)
Arts & the Nation: A critical re-examination of Scottish Literature, Painting, Music
and Culture (with Alexander Moffat and John Purser)
The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Scottish Literature (co-editor)
The International Companion to Edwin Morgan (editor)

Scottish Literature
an introduction
ALAN RIACH

First published 2022
isbn: 978-1-910022-95-5
The author’s right to be identified as author of this book
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.
The paper used in this book is recyclable. It is made
from low chlorine pulps produced in a low energy,
low emissions manner from renewable forests.
Printed and bound by
Severnprint Ltd., Gloucestershire
Typeset in 11 point Sabon LT Pro by
Main Point Books, Edinburgh
© Alan Riach 2022

‘Teaching is probably the noblest profession in the world – the most unselfish,
difficult, and honourable profession, but it is also the most unappreciated,
underrated, underpaid, and under-praised profession in the world.’
Thus wrote Leonard Bernstein in his book Findings.
This book is for the teachers, and of the best of my own: Edward Stead,
Tim Cribb, Helena Shire, Marshall Walker and Douglas Gifford, in partial
repayment of a debt I’ll never want to close.

Contents
This is where we begin 13
Preface 17
Part One: Three Questions
1 Why read Scottish literature? 20
2 What is literature? 26
3 Was there ever a ‘British’ literature? 33
Part Two: Scotland Emergent
1 The Gaelic tradition: the Three Great Cycles 44
2 The Gaelic Otherworld 53
3 Merlin, Arthur and Calgacus 57
4 The Picts, The Gododdin and Columba 62
5 From The Dream of the Rood to the Norse sagas 69
Part Three: Approaches
1 Performing Scotland: plays, drama and theatricality 76
2 Poetry: how to read and what to read 84
3 Stories and novels 89
Part Four: Authors and Works
1 Early Gaelic poetry: the Dean of Lismore and the MacMhuirichs 98
2 Thomas Rhymer and Wyntoun’s Cronykil 103
3 The Bruce, The Wallace, Bannockburn
and the Declaration of Arbroath 106
4 Love is all you need: James I, The Kingis Quair 113
5 The rule of compassion: Robert Henryson 118
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scottish literature, an introduction
6 Not energy ordered, energised order: William Dunbar 124
7 Poet and translator: Gavin Douglas 128
8 Early plays, Philotus and David Lyndsay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis 133
9 The Latin tradition and George Buchanan 145
10 The Latin tradition and Arthur Johnstone 154
11 Defy them all: Elizabeth Melville 159
12 Mark Alexander Boyd and the ‘Castalian Band’ 163
13 Sorrow in a deadly vein: William Drummond of Hawthornden 168
14 The Border Ballads, Robert Kirk and the Marquis of Montrose 171
15 Oddfellows: William Lithgow and Thomas Urquhart 176
16 Gaelic poetry of the 17th century 183
17 Gaelic poetry of the early 18th century 189
18 More Gaelic poetry of the early 18th century 194
19 Scottish Enlightenment authors: Stewart, Hume, Smith, Hutton,
Ferguson 197
20 In the eye of the storm: Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair /
Alexander MacDonald 205
21 The ecological eye: Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir /
Duncan Ban MacIntyre 213
22 Gaelic poetry of the later 18th century 217
23 James Macpherson and Ossian 222
24 Ramsay’s The Gentle Shepherd, Home’s Douglas
and Carstairs’s The Hubble-Shue 231
25 Tender strengths: Robert Fergusson 245
26 The politics of song: Robert Burns 249
27 Poetry in English: from Thomson to Byron 258
28 The doctor’s expeditions: Tobias Smollett 263
29 What can this thing be?: James Hogg 268
30 Divided loyalties, sympathies unbound: Walter Scott 273
31 Domestic politics, fanatic extremes: John Galt 293
8

contents
32 The Tavern Sages and Ferrier, Baillie, Brunton,
Oliphant, Cockburn and Reid 298
33 Victorian Sages from Thomas Carlyle to Margaret Oliphant 304
34 Gaelic poetry of the 19th century 310
35 Prophet of modernity: Robert Louis Stevenson 315
36 Stevenson’s contemporaries: from Charles Mackay to Florence Dixie 322
37 Writers of the Industrial Revolution: from Thomas Campbell
to Arthur Conan Doyle 327
38 Gaelic poetry: from 19th century to the 20th century 332
39 Beyond the Kailyard 338
40 The internationalists: from R.B. Cunninghame Graham to Violet Jacob 352
41 Gaelic poetry of the early 20th century 357
42 Playwrights and plays: from Joanna Baillie to John Brandane 363
43 Renaissance: Hugh MacDiarmid 369
44 Questions of language: William Soutar and Edwin Muir 383
45 Thin ice and voluminous works: Compton Mackenzie
and Naomi Mitchison 389
46 The morning star: Lewis Grassic Gibbon 394
47 Matters of spirit: Neil Gunn 399
48 Tragedy and comedy: Fionn Mac Colla and Eric Linklater 404
49 Self-determinations: Catherine Carswell, Nan Shepherd and Willa Muir 409
50 Playwrights and plays: Joe Corrie, James Bridie, Joan Littlewood
and Ewan MacColl 413
51 Edinburgh and Lochinver: Robert Garioch and Norman MacCaig 421
52 Love and war: Somhairle MacGill-Eain / Sorley MacLean
and Sydney Goodsir Smith 425
53 Scouts of the limits: W.S. Graham
and Deòrsa mac Iain Dheòrsa / George Campbell Hay 430
54 Folk song and the dance of the intellect: Hamish Henderson
and Edwin Morgan 437
55 Deadliness and grace: Robin Jenkins and Muriel Spark 443
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scottish literature, an introduction
56 Lords of the Isles: George Mackay Brown
and Iain Mac a’ Ghobhainn / Iain Crichton Smith 448
57 Gaelic poetry of the later 20th century 458
58 Playwrights and plays: from Robert McLellan to John McGrath 463
59 Literary fiction: from George Friel to Jessie Kesson 469
60 Scotland and America: Alexander Trocchi and Gordon Williams 473
61 Bestsellers: from Annie S. Swan to Nigel Tranter 476
62 Resisting repression: James Kennaway, Agnes Owens,
Archie Hind and Alasdair Gray 481
63 An awkward squad: from David Lindsay to Andrew O’Hagan 485
64 Gaelic prose fiction: from the 16th to the 20th centuries 489
65 Gaelic prose fiction in English and the Ùr-sgeul initiative 493
66 Modern Gaelic prose fiction: a flood of new novels 497
67 Possible dancers: Irvine Welsh, Carl MacDougall and A.L. Kennedy 500
68 Risky desires and natural needs: Iain Banks and Janice Galloway 505
69 Scotland and further: James Robertson, Ali Smith and Alan Warner 509
70 Forms of revival: Allan Massie, James Kelman and Alan Spence 513
71 Scotlands (plural): from Janet Paisley to Kirstin Innes 517
72 Gaelic fiction in the 21st century: satires, vexations and vicissitudes 522
73 Playwrights and plays: from Robert Kemp to Liz Lochhead 527
74 Plays: future prospects and past performance 533
75 Plays in Gaelic: on the page and on the stage 541
76 Plays, theatres and drama: a good night out 548
77 Lowlander and Gael: Stewart Conn and Aonghas MacNeacail 553
78 Three kinds of poet: Douglas Dunn, Tom Leonard
and Liz Lochhead 557
79 Nothing in uniform: from Veronica Forrest-Thomson to Jackie Kay 562
80 Worlds of difference: from Tom Buchan to Kathleen Jamie 566
10

contents
Part Five: divagations
1 Languages, literature, humanity and tragedy 572
2 Big themes and new approaches 578
3 Mongrel nation: freedom, history and geography 583
4 Modernity and war: visions beyond violence 588
5 Genres and forms: crime, science fiction, children’s literature, song 594
6 Scottish literature at play 600
7 Psychology, flyting, philosophy and speculation 607
8 Religion and sport 612
9 Radio, film and TV 617
10 New media 622
11 Travel writing 628
12 Diaspora 633
Part six: a loose canon
1 The idea of a canon 640
2 What a canon is 644
3 What a canon is for 649
4 A loose canon: significant authors and works of Scottish literature 654
Part seven: a gazeteer of scottish literature
Map 676
101 places to visit 677
Further reading 709
A select bibliography of histories of Scottish literature 711
Endnote 715
Acknowledgements 716
Index of author names 717
11

This is where we begin
The painting on the front cover of this book depicts a mountainous landscape,
sensually presented in vivid colours, with deep seawater and freshwater lochs,
long straths of land forming bays and peninsulas around inlets: a natural and
ancient world, but with a scattering of houses: a populated landscape, far from
cities but occupied by the lives of people, their loves, concerns, and particular
dispositions through generations. The painting is ‘The Cuillins, Evening, April
1964’ by John Cunningham (1926–98). The great Gaelic poet Somhairle MacGill-
Eain or Sorley MacLean (1911–96) ends his poem ‘The Cuillin’ like this:
Thar lochan fala clan nan daoine,
thar breòiteachd blàir is strì an aonaich,
thar bochdainn, caitheimh, fiabhrais, àmhgair,
thar anacothruim, eucoir, ainneairt, ànraidh
thar truaighe, eu-dòchais, gamhlais, cuilbheirt,
thar ciont is truaillidheachd, gu furachair,
gu treunmhor chithear an Cuilithionn
’s e ’g èirigh air taobh eile duilghe.
Here are the lines in MacLean’s English translation:
Beyond the lochs of the blood of the children of men,
beyond the frailty of plain and the labour of mountain,
beyond poverty, consumption, fever, agony,
beyond hardship, wrong, tyranny, distress,
beyond misery, despair, hatred, treachery,
beyond guilt and defilement: watchful
heroic, the Cuillin is seen
rising on the other side of sorrow.
The poem was written in 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War.
MacLean saw the rise of Fascism in Europe and imagined the mountain range
of his native place as a geological opposition to human brutality, a permanent
symbol of hope. He was born on the island of Raasay, beside Skye, and grew
up looking over towards these mountains, climbing them as a young man.
By the 20th century most of Scotland’s population was living in cities –
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee. So we might begin with a recognisable
image of Scotland as a place of natural beauty and symbolic authority, but we
must deepen our understanding with a sense of the historical complexity of
13

scottish literature, an introduction
Scotland’s national identity before we can begin to fully encounter the richness of
Scottish literature. The geological physicality, the potent imagery, the experience
over many generations of both country and city, the religious histories of
Catholic and Protestant dominions, the political priorities of communal or
profit-based economies, and most recently the doubleness of British imperial and
independent Scottish identities, and above all the interpretations made possible
by different, but overlapping languages, pre-eminently Gaelic, Scots and English
– all these help form the particular kaleidoscope of singularity we call Scotland.
‘Scotland’ is a word that names a particular nation, defined by geographical
borders. In the early 21st century, since the union of the crowns of Scotland and
England in 1603 and the union of the parliaments of Edinburgh and London
in 1707, this nation exists within the political state of the United Kingdom
and Northern Ireland, with its global legacy of British imperialism. Scotland
might be imagined in two different dimensions: as part of a political state with
its imperial political legacy, and as a single nation of separate, multi-faceted
cultural distinction, along with other nations in the world. As the American
poet Charles Olson puts it in ‘Letter 5’ of The Maximus Poems:
Limits
are what any of us
are inside of
For people who grow up and live within the borders of this nation, certain
things may be conferred by languages, geology, terrain, climate and weather,
architectural designs, current behavioural habits and a history of cultural
production, that might be different from such things elsewhere. The languages
in which most Scottish literature is written – Gaelic, Scots and English – confer
their own rhythms, sounds, musical dynamics, and the relations between them
create their own character in the priorities of expression in speech and writing.
Geography creates another range of characteristics. Growing up speaking in
different languages and living in different parts of Scotland, generates different
prospects and perspectives. In the Borders, you might look south to England;
along the east coast, you might look across to other northern European nations.
Things look different again in the archipelagos of the north, Orkney and Shetland,
and of the west, the Inner and Outer Hebrides; and different again along the
west coast of mainland Scotland, or in the north in Caithness and Sutherland,
or in the central fertile farmlands of Perthshire and Kinross, or in the central
belt where most people in the country now live, the industrialised, now postindustrial,
Glasgow, and Scotland’s capital (or ‘capital-in-waiting’), Edinburgh.
All these locations suggest the diversity of perspectives Scotland – and Scottish
literature – presents. Each one creates different ways of seeing. And such ways
14

this is where we begin
of seeing are not only a birth-right. They may also be learned. But as Hugh
MacDiarmid points out:
It requires great love of it deeply to read
The configuration of a land…
Where did this nation begin?
Over half a millennium, from before Columba’s time in the 6th century, through
Kenneth MacAlpin in the 9th century and Malcolm Canmore in the 11th century,
different groups of people of different languages and cultural preferences got to
know more about each other and began to live together in a comity of identity.
Before them, there was birdsong. Before that, there was the ice.
Identity is a function of position, and position is a function of power.
This is where we begin.
15

Preface
this book is mainly concerned with retrieving and renewing, history brought
into the present, the dead returned to the living. But above all it is a personal
introduction. Its investment has been quite a lot of my life. It rests on a formidable
quantity of scholarship, but it’s written with immediate attention to primary texts,
and with relatively little reference to secondary critical material. Scottish literature
has over long eras been neglected or deliberately obscured, so securing its place
in the firmament is a kind of redress, a reclamation. To paraphrase a fictional
character of diabolical intent, ‘Revenge is sweet, mine extends over centuries, and
time is on my side.’ And all poets, as we know, are of the devil’s party.
In this overview of major periods, themes, authors and works of Scottish
literature, I have chosen to emphasise certain authors, works, avenues of approach
and aspects of consideration, which seem to me at this point in history to warrant
emphasis. I hope the overarching story is accurate enough to the enormous and
varied terrain, and I hope that what I say here works in the recognition that the
terrain itself is always shifting, never entirely fixed, always open, never completely
closed.
Some people, over many generations, have denied the validity of Scottish
literature as a worthwhile area of study and attempted to tell the story of literature
across the centuries as if there were only one central story to be told. For a long
time, Scottish literature has been a neglected subject in our educational institutions.
But as the great Scottish artist William Johnstone says in his book Creative Art in
Britain (1950): ‘It is idle to blame teachers. My criticism of educational methods is
aimed at certain consequences of the prevalent attitude to experience.’ And as Ezra
Pound puts it in his ABC of Reading (1934): ‘the value of old work is constantly
affected by the value of the new’. There is always a need to reassess work which
the current ‘attitude to experience’ – especially as represented in most media every
day – is urging us to neglect.
I have not written exclusively for professional scholars and critics but for people
who enjoy reading, looking at paintings and sculptures, listening to music, and
learning about things. I have included reference details in the body of the book,
giving only date of publication for works that are easily identified, and place,
publisher and further information as well as dates for specific works whose details
are less accessible. Dates for the lives of authors are given where they first appear
or where their works are discussed extensively. I have not used notes in the hope
that the book might be read fluently, and such information as may be needed is
provided in the main text. I think it was A.R. Orage who advised writers for his
periodical, The New Age, to read their work out loud before submitting it. If it
17

scottish literature, an introduction
doesn’t work read aloud, it shouldn’t be printed. Good advice.
Marshall Walker, in his book Scottish Literature since 1707 (1996), confessed a
‘partiality for a view of literary works as incontrovertibly human products’ created
‘by real people with visions to impart according to more or less ascertainable
aesthetic devices. Such works come from authors, not merely from other texts,
but all texts are related in some way to a Zeitgeist.’ I agree with him.
Angus Calder, in his book Russia Discovered (1976), wrote of the authors
of that country words that apply just as well to those of Scotland: ‘These great
writers have so much to teach us about the use of time, the search for the full
potential of every second, and the obligatory rage against whatever denies that
to us. And no other reading, surely, is less a waste of time.’
My book is primarily concerned with such writers and makers of literature
whose quality Calder describes but it is also ‘a view of literary works’ as Walker
puts it, and therefore one among many acts increasing the possibility and extent
of awareness of Scotland’s culture. A.P. Cohen, in an essay which ultimately
addresses the relation between human awareness and ecology, ‘Oil and the
Cultural Account: Reflections on a Shetland Community’, Scottish Journal of
Sociology, 3 (1978), notes as follows: ‘Once one has become conscious of culture,
it must be perceived and handled in a different way than previously.’
Here’s hoping.
Alan Riach, Alloway
April 2022
18

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What do we mean by ‘Scottish literature’?
Why does it matter?
How do we engage with it?
Bringing infectious enthusiasm and a lifetime’s
experience to bear on this multi-faceted literary
nation, Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature
at the University of Glasgow, sets out to guide you
through the varied and ever-evolving landscape of
Scottish literature.
A comprehensive and extensive work designed not
only for scholars but also for the generally curious,
Scottish Literature: an introduction tells the tale of
Scotland’s many voices across the ages, from Celtic
pre-history to modern mass media. Forsaking critical
jargon, Riach journeys chronologically through
individual works and writers, both the famed and
the forgotten, alongside broad overviews of cultural
contexts which connect texts to their own times.
Expanding the restrictive canon of days gone by,
Riach also sets down a new core body of ‘Scottish
Literature’: key writers and works in English, Scots,
and Gaelic.
alan riach
Few have such a vigorous
and persuasive vision of
what Scottish literature
has been about…
TIMES LITERARY
SUPPLEMENT on Arts of
Resistance
Not only educates but also
fascinates readers.
SCOTTISH FIELD on
Arts and the Nation
Ranging across time and genre, Scottish Literature:
an introduction invites you to hear Scotland through
her own words.
Luath Press Ltd.
543/2 Castlehill
The Royal Mile
Edinburgh eh1 2nd
uk £25.00
us $45.00
www.luath.co.uk
FRONT COVER IMAGE: JOHN CUNNINGHAM, ‘THE CULLINS, EVENING, APRIL 1964’
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH: MACARTHUR CUNNINGHAM
DESIGN: EILIDH MACLENNAN