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