Academic literature on the topic 'Scotland-History-19th century - Fiction'

This article examines the historical fiction of Sir Walter Scott, in its dual function not only as a reflection of history, but likewise as an active influence on the shaping of 19th century historical consciousness. This dual role is analysed with particular regard to the special position of Scotland in Great Britain and in the wider world before, during, and after Scott’s lifetime. The main focus of analysis is on the dialectic of attraction and revulsion that permits readers to indulge in the author’s imaginative recreation of a colourful and adventurous past, while at the same time retaining or reinforcing a belief in the superiority of the present. Walter Scott is thus defended against accusations of mere literary escapism or of promoting sentimental nostalgia for an idealised lost world of romance, and rather portrayed as a literary advocate for the overcoming of divisions within Scotland and within Britain, through a healing process based on an ultimate recognition of the pastness of the past, and of the inevitability of progress. Finally, a parallel is drawn between divergent uses and perceptions of the historical imagination in western literature and in the Arab world..

This thesis argues that the term Kailyard is not a body of literature or cultural discourse, but a critical concept which has helped to construct controlling parameters for the discussion of literature and culture in Scotland. By offering an in-depth reading of the fiction of J.M. Barrie - the writer who is most usually and misleadingly associated with the term - and by tracing the writing career of Ian Maclaren, I argue for the need to reject the term and the critical assumptions it breeds. The introduction maps the various ways Kailyard has been employed in literary and cultural debates and shows how it promotes a critical approach to Scottish culture which focuses on the way individual writers, texts and images represent Scotland. Chapter 1 considers why this critical concern arose by showing how images of national identity and national literary distinctiveness were validated as the meaning of Scotland throughout the nineteenth century. Chapters 2-5 seek to overturn various assumptions bred by the term Kailyard. Chapter 2 discusses the early fiction of J.M. Barrie in the context of late nineteenth-century regionalism, showing how his work does not aim to depict social reality but is deliberately artificial in design. Chapter 3 discusses late Victorian debates over realism in fiction and shows how Barrie and Maclaren appealed to the reading public because of their treatment of established Victorian ideas of sympathy and the sentimental. Chapter 4 discusses Barrie's four longer novels - the works most constrained by the Kailyard term - and chapter 5 reconsiders the relationship between Maclaren's work and debates over popular culture. Chapter 6 analyses the use of the term Kailyard in twentieth-century Scottish cultural criticism. Discussing the criticism of Hugh MacDiarmid, the writing of literary histories and studies of Scottish film, history and politics, I argue for the need to reject the Kailyard term as a critical concept in the discussion of Scottish culture.