Scotland and Scottish Literature

by

Juliet Shields

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 October 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199799558-0220

Introduction

Until recently, Victorian Scottish literature has been ignored or marginalized both within Scottish studies and Victorian studies. Scholars in the latter field have tended to regard Scotland as an afterthought or appendage to England, while those in the former viewed the Victorian era as a fallow period in Scotland’s literary history. Falling between the Romantic era, when Edinburgh rivalled London as a vibrant center of literature and culture, and the Scottish literary renaissance of the early twentieth century, which sought to foster a new cultural nationalism, the Victorian period seemed to be marked by a dearth of literary creativity. This supposed dearth has been attributed to the seamlessness of 19th-century Scotland’s cultural and political incorporation in Great Britain. Many Scottish authors resided in London, the metropolitan center of Britain’s literary empire; and consequently, some of the most prolific and best-known of these authors, such as Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle, sometimes are not even recognized as Scottish. Much of the fiction and poetry that is unequivocally Scottish in linguistic register, form, or content was relegated by 20th-century critics to the Kailyard, a term that literally describes a kitchen garden, but that became a pejorative label suggesting the home-grown simplicity of much mid-Victorian Scottish literature. Scholars dismissed Kailyard literature, epitomized by the works of James M. Barrie, Samuel R. Crockett, and Annie S. Swan, as sentimental, parochial, and inauthentic. Since the early twentieth-first century, scholars have begun to question the biases of the literary historical narratives constructed by 20th-century critics. Work on the impact of imperial expansion and emigration and on the formation of the Free Church of Scotland has transformed our understanding of Kailyard literature as a response to economic and social change. Research on the history of print has redirected our attention from London’s literary marketplace to local literary cultures in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee, in addition to other, less urban sites. These developments have begun to redress the exclusion of women and working-class writers from the study of Victorian Scottish literature. Writers working in Gaelic continue to be marginalized, although explorations of fin de siècle Celticism have revealed their impact on those writing in Scots and in English. This article includes sources on literature written in all of Scotland’s three languages: English, Scots, and Gaelic.

General

Currently, there exist no general sources devoted exclusively to Victorian Scottish literature other than Shaw 2016, a brief essay outlining new directions for research in the field. Most sources feature the Victorian period as part of a volume or chapter covering the nineteenth century in its entirety, including Romanticism (e.g., Gifford 1988; Kidd, et al. 2022; Watson 1984; Wittig 1958). In those sources published before the twenty-first century, the Victorian period is generally characterized as the disappointing aftermath to the Romantic era, which is often seen as the high point of Scottish literary history. More recent studies, including Walker 1996; Crawford 2009; Gifford, et al. 2002; Kidd, et al. 2022; and Manning 2007, avoid the obvious embarrassment with which earlier scholars viewed the period by situating Victorian Scottish literature in contexts including industrialization, nationhood, empire, popular print culture, and the fin de siècle Celtic Revival. The overview of Scottish women’s writing in Gifford and McMillan 1997 provides insight into one of the reasons that Scottish Victorian literature has been overlooked: the bulk of the literature of this period was written by women, and Scottish literary studies remains staunchly resistant to the inclusion of women writers.

• Crawford, Robert. Scotland’s Books: A History of Scottish Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

  Crawford’s history of Scottish literature covers fifteen centuries of prose, drama, and poetry and analyzes works written in Latin, Gaelic, Scots, and English. The chapter devoted to Victorian Scottish literature focuses on the exodus of Scottish authors to London. Full of entertaining anecdotes, it discusses writers including Carlyle, Stevenson, Oliphant, Barrie, William Livingstone (Uilleam MacDhun-léibhe), and James Thomson.

• Gifford, Douglas, ed. The History of Scottish Literature. Vol. 3, The Nineteenth Century. Aberdeen, UK: Aberdeen University Press, 1988.

  This volume has aged well and remains a useful introduction to Victorian Scotland’s major concerns and authors. It features chapters on topics such as the periodical press, the Kailyard, emigration, and local literary communities, all of which would become substantial areas of research in subsequent decades, as reflected in this article. It comes up short on women writers, which receive no coverage, and Gaelic literature, which gets one chapter, but provides coverage of poetry, fiction and nonfiction prose, and drama.

• Gifford, Douglas, Sarah Dunnigan, and Alan MacGillivray, eds. Scottish Literature in English and Scots. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002.

  This substantial volume provides historical and cultural context for Scottish literature from the medieval era to the late twentieth century, along with in-depth analysis of key works. The section on Victorian and Edwardian literature includes chapters on George MacDonald, James Young Geddes, John Davidson, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Barrie, Margaret Oliphant, James Thomson, and George Douglas Brown, as well as brief introductions to additional writers and a lengthy list of further reading.

• Gifford, Douglas, and Dorothy McMillan, eds. A History of Scottish Women’s Writing. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997.

  This broad survey of Scottish women’s writing provides some coverage of the Victorian era. In addition to chapters on Jane Carlyle, Elizabeth Grant, Margaret Oliphant, and Mary and Jane Findlater, it features chapters on poetry and song, travel writing, and the periodical press.

• Kidd, Sheila M., Caroline McCracken-Flesher, and Kenneth McNeil, eds. The International Companion to Nineteenth-Century Scottish Literature. Glasgow: Scottish Literature International, 2022.

  This collection of essays provides the most varied array of approaches to Victorian Scottish literature. Although the chapter topics are somewhat idiosyncratic, the volume incorporates up-to-date research on periodical literature, women’s writing, working-class writers, travel writing and imperialism, literature and science, and the Scottish and Gaelic diasporas.

• Manning, Susan, ed. The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature. Vol. 2, Enlightenment, Britain and Empire (1707–1918). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.

  The second of a three-volume history of Scottish literature, this resource provides comparatively thorough coverage of Victorian Scotland. In addition to discussions of authors such as Carlyle, Stevenson, and Barrie, it includes chapters on the Celtic Revival, Gaelic literature, children’s fiction, the Kailyard, and emigration. Despite the volume’s title, Scottish participation in British imperialism receives little attention, while print culture receives a good deal, and women’s writing almost none.

• Shaw, Michael. “Transculturation and Historicisation: New Directions for the Study of Scottish Literature c.1840–1914.” Literature Compass 13 (2016): 501–510.

  DOI: 10.1111/lic3.12326

  This incisive essay surveys recent developments in research on Victorian Scottish literature and outlines further avenues of inquiry. Shaw attributes earlier characterizations of Victorian Scottish literature as sentimental and parochial to a failure to adequately explore the historical context in which it was produced. The essay proposes comparative study as a way of increasing the visibility of Scottish Victorian literature.

• Walker, Marshall. Scottish Literature since 1707. London: Longman, 1996.

  Taking as its starting point the 1707 Anglo-Scottish Union of Parliaments, this volume focuses on national identity in modern Scottish literature. It devotes two chapters to Victorian Scotland, one entirely on Robert Louis Stevenson and the other on Thomas Carlyle, Margaret Oliphant, James Thomson, and John Davidson. An appendix provides a short biography and a list of major works for each author.

• Watson, Roderick. The Literature of Scotland. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1984.

  DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-86111-8

  Watson’s ambitious history of Scottish literature from its medieval origins to the mid-twentieth century provides very brief introductions to a range of Victorian authors and topics. Lesser- known authors covered include Hugh Millar, James Thomson, and John Davidson. The entire body of Victorian Gaelic literature receives a scant four pages.

• Wittig, Kurt. The Scottish Tradition in Literature. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1958.

  This survey of medieval through modernist Scottish literature is somewhat dated and reflects common 20th-century prejudices against Scottish Victorian literature. The section on the nineteenth century, tellingly titled “Backwash,” is divided into two parts, “Emigrants,” featuring authors such as Carlyle and Byron who resided primarily in England and “Stay-at-Homes,” including James Hogg and, surprisingly, given his position in the Canada Company, John Galt.