Gerard Carruthers 
A Companion to Scottish Literature 

A Companion to Scottish Literature offers fresh readings of major authors and periods of Scottish literary production from the first millennium to the present. Bringing together contributions by many of the world’s leading experts in the field, this comprehensive resource provides the historical background of Scottish literature, highlights new critical approaches, and explores wider cultural and institutional contexts.

Dealing with texts in the languages of Scots, English, and Gaelic, the Companion offers modern perspectives on the historical milieux, thematic contexts and canonical writers of Scottish literature. Original essays apply the most up-to-date critical and scholarly analyses to a uniquely wide range of topics, such as Gaelic literature, national and diasporic writing, children’s literature, Scottish drama and theatre, gender and sexuality, and women’s writing. Critical readings examine William Dunbar, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark and Carol Ann Duffy, amongst others.

With full references and guidance for further reading, as well as numerous links to online resources, A Companion to Scottish Literature is essential reading for advanced students and scholars of Scottish literature, as well as academic and non-academic readers with an interest in the subject.

Table of Content

Notes on Contributors xi

Preface xxii

Acknowledgements xxiv

1 Introduction: What is Scottish Literature? 1
Gerard Carruthers

Part I: Periods 15

2 The First Millennium 17
Dauvit Broun and Gerard Carruthers

3 The Medieval Period 27
Pamela King

4 The Reformation 39
David J. Parkinson

5 The Seventeenth Century 52
Alasdair A. Mac Donald

6 The Enlightenment 64
Ronnie Young

7 Literature in Gaelic I 77
Duncan Sneddon and M. Pía Coira

8 Romanticism 91
Dafydd Moore

9 The Scotch Novel 104
Peter Garside

10 The Victorian Period 116
Kirstie Blair and Michael Shaw

11 Hugh Mac Diarmid and the Scottish Literary Revival 127
Scott Lyall

12 Contemporary and Post-Modern Scotland 140
Timothy C. Baker

13 Literature in Gaelic II 152
Peter Mackay

Part II: Genres and Contexts 165

14 The Early Book in Scotland 167
Jeremy J. Smith

15 Publishing in Scotland to 1800 180
Rhona Brown

16 Publishing in Scotland from 1800 192
David Finkelstein

17 Sentimental Literature 205
Andrew Nash

18 Jacobitism 218
Daniel Cook

19 Religion 233
Linden Bicket

20 Folkways 246
Corey Gibson

21 Mapping Murder — Places in Scottish Crime Writing 259
Carol Baraniuk

22 Children’s Literature 271
Sarah M. Dunnigan

23 Scottish Drama and Theatre 286
Ian Brown

24 Gender and Sexuality 299
Carole Jones

25 Race and Ethnicity in Scottish Literature 311
Joe Jackson

26 Magazines, Devolution and Makars — the Institutions of Scottish Literature 324
Eleanor Bell

27 Diaspora 336
Paul Malgrati

28 Teaching Scottish Literature in the English Classroom 349
Gillian Sargent

29 Scottish Literature in the 21st Century and the New Media 363
Craig Lamont

Part III: Writers 377

30 Henryson, Dunbar and Douglas 379
Nicola Royan

31 Poets in the Age of James VI 393
Kelsey Jackson Williams

32 Women’s Writing to 1700 406
Sarah M. Dunnigan

33 Robert Burns and the 18th Century Vernacular Revival 419
Steve Newman

34 Women’s Writing, 1700–1900 432
Ainsley Mc Intosh

35 James Thomson 445
Sandro Jung

36 Alasdair A. Mac Donald and Duncan Ban Mc Intyre 458
Ronald Black

37 Walter Scott 473
Ian Duncan

38 Thomas Carlyle and His Ideas 486
Joanna Malecka

39 Robert Louis Stevenson 498
Robert P. Irvine

40 Sorley Mac Lean 509
Máire Ní Annracháin

41 W.S. Graham 523
Andrew Mc Neillie

42 Kelman, Gray, Welsh and the New Urban Writing 538
Anthony Jarrells

43 Muriel Spark and the Invention of Identity 550
David Goldie

44 Edwin Morgan, Norman Mac Caig and Iain Crichton Smith 561
Matt Mc Guire

45 Liz Lochhead and Jackie Kay 574
Carla Rodríguez González

46 Contemporary Poetry — Carol-Ann Duffy, Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson 586
Danny O’Connor

47 Women’s Writing, 1900–2020 598
Fiona Mc Culloch

48 Scottish Literature in Film 611
John Caughie

49 Timeline and Further Resources 624
Moira Hansen

Index 644

About the author

Gerard Carruthers is Francis Hutcheson Chair of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. He is author or editor of 22 books and more than 170 academic essays and articles. Professor Carruthers is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Advisor to the National Trust for Scotland on Burns and General Editor of the multi-volume Oxford University Press edition of the Collected Works of Robert Burns. Recent publications include the co-edited volumes 1820: Scottish Rebellion, essays on a nineteenth-century insurrection (John Donald, 2022) and Crooked Dividend: Essays on Muriel Spark (ASL, 2022).