Scottish Literature and World War I
Edited by David A. Rennie
- Includes studies united by an innovative methodological approach to Scottish World War I writing
- Contends that the war’s effect on Scotland and Scottish letters was more multifaceted and far-ranging than prior assessments have allowed for
- Addresses work by some of Scotland’s most popular and influential writers, such as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, John Buchan, Nan Shepherd, Neil Gunn, Charles Hamilton Sorley, and Hugh MacDiarmid
This book highlights the variety of literary, social, political and philosophical reverberations of the war in Scotland’s writing. Part one of the collection presents multi-text case studies of nationalism, Scottish Great War prose, popular literature, women’s letters to the editor, Gaelic writing and philosophy. Part two contains essays devoted to individual authors, including canonical figures such as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Nan Shepherd, Neil Gunn and John Buchan, as well as peripheral authors such as George A. C. Mackinlay, Charles Murray and Ewart Alan Mackintosh.
Introduction: ‘A reflection of the contrasts’: Scottish Literature and World War I David A. Rennie
Part One: Multi-text Case Studies
- Scottish Literature, Nationalism and the First World WarAlan Riach
- ‘It Takes All Sorts to Make a Type’: Scottish Great War ProseDavid A. Rennie
- Unquiet on the Home Front: Scottish Popular Fiction and the Truth of WarDavid Goldie
- ‘One Who Has Sacrificed’: The Use of ‘High Diction’ in Women’s Correspondence to Scottish Newspapers during the First World WarSarah Pedersen
- Gaelic VerseRonald Black
- Gaelic ProseRonald Black
- Scottish Philosophy and the First World WarCairns Craig
- What Next?: Nan Shepherd and the First World WarAlison Lumsden
- Pagan Modernism: First World War and Spiritual Revival in Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song and Neil M. Gunn’s Highland RiverScott Lyall
- A Bounded Heaven: George A.C. Mackinlay and Great War PastoralRandall Stevenson
- Pastoral as Propaganda in John Buchan’s Wartime WritingFiona Houston
- Charles Murray and A Sough o’ WarRobert Crawford
- ‘But Change, Nothing Abides’: Sunset Song and the Nature of ChangeJohn Lucas
- Ewart Alan Mackintosh in Memoriam: Leadership, Patriotism, and Posthumous Commemoration Neil McLennan
Part Two: Individual Authors
Bibliography Index
The 600,000 men who fought in Scottish regiments or in the Navy and Air Force during the Great War fought for Scotland, to them a palpable space of affect and meaning. This important book of essays breaks new ground in capturing the ways that the Great War reconfigured the boundaries between Scottish and British culture.
