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2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rupert Alexander Pirie-Hunter

<p>Celebrations of Scottish literature in the last decades of the twentieth century have neglected one of Scotland’s most important writers: Agnes Owens. Owens’ work and its influence is far more complex, and far greater in reach, than most accounts acknowledge. Her significance is no secret: Alasdair Gray and James Kelman have championed her work; Glasgow University’s Douglas Gifford has said that Owens “can claim to have done more than most in the redefinition of women in fiction.” This paper aims to lay the groundwork from which meaningful criticism of Agnes Owens can be realised in the 21st Century. Taking cue from Walter Benjamin’s “The Author as Producer”, particularly his argument that “the tendency of a work of literature can be politically correct only if it is also correct in the literary sense”, I argue that the aesthetics and politics of Owens’ work deconstruct and redefine traditional models of working-class literature and representation.  The first chapter analyses her first collection of short stories, Gentlemen of the West and its sequel novella, Like Birds in the Wilderness. I challenge the way these texts have been read as realist working-class fiction through a careful examination of her short stories and novellas, offering an alternative framework through which they can be read. Gentlemen subverts notions of societal “initiation” in working-class fiction, with Mac’s attempt to escape his community being undone by the conclusion of Birds. The second chapter is a study of three of her short stories, attending to her minimalist illustrations of the socially condemned, and her confronting exposition of the readers’ gaze. Finally, this thesis discusses the gendered landscape of her novel, A Working Mother. Using Elaine Showalter’s The Female Malady as an organising text, I argue that Owens’ treatment of gender relations challenge literary notions of female “hysteria” and madness. Taken as a whole, this thesis addresses Owens’ absence, attempting to locate her work within Scottish literary criticism. It is offered as a way forward for the study of her work in years to come.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rupert Alexander Pirie-Hunter

<p>Celebrations of Scottish literature in the last decades of the twentieth century have neglected one of Scotland’s most important writers: Agnes Owens. Owens’ work and its influence is far more complex, and far greater in reach, than most accounts acknowledge. Her significance is no secret: Alasdair Gray and James Kelman have championed her work; Glasgow University’s Douglas Gifford has said that Owens “can claim to have done more than most in the redefinition of women in fiction.” This paper aims to lay the groundwork from which meaningful criticism of Agnes Owens can be realised in the 21st Century. Taking cue from Walter Benjamin’s “The Author as Producer”, particularly his argument that “the tendency of a work of literature can be politically correct only if it is also correct in the literary sense”, I argue that the aesthetics and politics of Owens’ work deconstruct and redefine traditional models of working-class literature and representation.  The first chapter analyses her first collection of short stories, Gentlemen of the West and its sequel novella, Like Birds in the Wilderness. I challenge the way these texts have been read as realist working-class fiction through a careful examination of her short stories and novellas, offering an alternative framework through which they can be read. Gentlemen subverts notions of societal “initiation” in working-class fiction, with Mac’s attempt to escape his community being undone by the conclusion of Birds. The second chapter is a study of three of her short stories, attending to her minimalist illustrations of the socially condemned, and her confronting exposition of the readers’ gaze. Finally, this thesis discusses the gendered landscape of her novel, A Working Mother. Using Elaine Showalter’s The Female Malady as an organising text, I argue that Owens’ treatment of gender relations challenge literary notions of female “hysteria” and madness. Taken as a whole, this thesis addresses Owens’ absence, attempting to locate her work within Scottish literary criticism. It is offered as a way forward for the study of her work in years to come.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sarah Chesney

<p>Connections between the Gothic and opera remain a subsidiary concern to most writers on the Gothic and on opera, if they are even addressed at all. In this study I wish to illuminate how the Gothic is presented both musically and visually on stage through the setting and thematic traits in select nineteenth-century Italian operas. A number of ideas are central to this aim. Firstly, that the ‘Gothic’ dimension of ‘Gothic opera’ is overtly represented through staging. The settings of many ‘Gothic operas’ in Scotland and England reveal the continental European fascination with northern Europe and its history. This stemmed from the influx of English and Scottish literature, most prominently the Ossian poems and the works of Walter Scott and Shakespeare. Consequently, Gothic scenes such as ruined medieval castles and rugged cliffs, masked by darkness or mist are enmeshed with a northern landscape. Tartan costuming also visually situates the Gothic scenes in Northern Europe. Furthermore, the use of musical mannerisms of Scotland and England, particularly in chorus scenes, reinforces this parallel between the Gothic and the north, linking music to the visible Gothic setting. Secondly, I will explore the way in which Gothic imaginings of both immaterial and physical incarnations of the supernatural move between the latent subconscious and conscious realisation. This is evident through the interplay between voice, orchestra and the singer’s corporeality and draws upon recent operatic studies concerning representation of ‘others’, dramatisation, and theatrical spaces. This second section positions women at the heart of the Gothic in opera, as the soprano is most often the character susceptible to other-worldly encounters and madness. The fundamental figure in this study is Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). A number of his operas from the 1830s, especially Lucia di Lammermoor, emphasise how the Gothic may be revealed in opera. However, I conclude with a chapter on Macbeth, the ‘Gothic opera’ of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), for this work demonstrates how the configuration of the Gothic is developed in musical and dramatic terms and presents a case where the supernatural influence becomes all-empowered.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sarah Chesney

<p>Connections between the Gothic and opera remain a subsidiary concern to most writers on the Gothic and on opera, if they are even addressed at all. In this study I wish to illuminate how the Gothic is presented both musically and visually on stage through the setting and thematic traits in select nineteenth-century Italian operas. A number of ideas are central to this aim. Firstly, that the ‘Gothic’ dimension of ‘Gothic opera’ is overtly represented through staging. The settings of many ‘Gothic operas’ in Scotland and England reveal the continental European fascination with northern Europe and its history. This stemmed from the influx of English and Scottish literature, most prominently the Ossian poems and the works of Walter Scott and Shakespeare. Consequently, Gothic scenes such as ruined medieval castles and rugged cliffs, masked by darkness or mist are enmeshed with a northern landscape. Tartan costuming also visually situates the Gothic scenes in Northern Europe. Furthermore, the use of musical mannerisms of Scotland and England, particularly in chorus scenes, reinforces this parallel between the Gothic and the north, linking music to the visible Gothic setting. Secondly, I will explore the way in which Gothic imaginings of both immaterial and physical incarnations of the supernatural move between the latent subconscious and conscious realisation. This is evident through the interplay between voice, orchestra and the singer’s corporeality and draws upon recent operatic studies concerning representation of ‘others’, dramatisation, and theatrical spaces. This second section positions women at the heart of the Gothic in opera, as the soprano is most often the character susceptible to other-worldly encounters and madness. The fundamental figure in this study is Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). A number of his operas from the 1830s, especially Lucia di Lammermoor, emphasise how the Gothic may be revealed in opera. However, I conclude with a chapter on Macbeth, the ‘Gothic opera’ of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), for this work demonstrates how the configuration of the Gothic is developed in musical and dramatic terms and presents a case where the supernatural influence becomes all-empowered.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-173
Author(s):  
Adam Gilbert

Eric Linklater's 1934 novel Magnus Merriman is recognised as a comic triumph for its satirical treatment of the Scottish Renaissance and the associated contemporary Scottish nationalist movement. This article argues that Magnus Merriman has deceptive depth because Linklater offers frequently profound insights into a compelling point in Scottish cultural and political history. The misadventures of the eponymous Magnus have strong parallels with Linklater's own belated entry into the Scottish Literary Renaissance and his disastrous attempt at standing for parliament as a Scottish nationalist candidate. The novel showcases Linklater's idiosyncratic political doctrine of ‘small nationalism’, and his unflattering portrayal of the National Party of Scotland is coloured by his disillusionment with it. The doomed poem written by Magnus, ‘ The Returning Sun’, symbolises the Scottish Renaissance, reflecting its shortcomings and the difficulty of forming a unified Scottish cultural identity. The character of Magnus himself embodies the lack of a single, coherent Scottish identity as a Scottish Renaissance anti-hero. Magnus's political and literary disappointments mean Linklater gives a pessimistic assessment of the relative failure of the Scottish Renaissance and the nationalist movement of the period. Linklater's irreverent examination of Scottish nationalism retains contemporary relevance. Magnus Merriman is more than just a hilarious comedy and represents a significant contribution to Scottish literature.


2021 ◽  
pp. 165-180
Author(s):  
E. A. Martynenko

An interpretation of the story “Culture Capitalism”, placed in the authoritative anthology “Every Short Story: from 1951 to 2012” of the classic of Scottish literature Alasdair Gray, in the context of the original interpretation by the patriotic writer of the “Scottish question «is offered in the article. It is noted that the problems of the story, written in 1990, are closely related to the establishment in the same year of the status of Glasgow as a cultural capital. Gray’s doubt about the declared cultural messages is analyzed through the prism of the concepts of P. Bourdieu and S. Žižek. It is proved that certain plots and images indicate the development in Gray’s work of ideas close to researchers of postcolonial literature, and in particular the idea of “internal colonization" of Scotland. An interpretation of a number of images that have an allegorical meaning in the light of criticism of English cultural, political and economic hegemony is offered in the article. In addition, based on the ideas of J. Homberg-Schramm about the nature of the nation’s ideas about its gender, class and linguistic identity, the author considers the representation of national auto-stereotypes and their consistent revision. The author concludes that Alasdair Gray sees the possible peaceful coexistence of England and Scotland beyond the boundaries of the model of exploitative colonialism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 61-65
Author(s):  
Paula Argueso San Martin

On the occasion of the publication of the Contemporary Scottish Urban Literature CJES Special Issue, this interview to Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, one of the last he gave, aims to celebrate Gray’s work and to emphasise his role as a crucial influence for the contemporary Scottish writers whose work features in this special issue. In a very personal manner, Gray strings together reflections on contemporary politics, discusses the role of the local and the national in his work and addresses questions on the construction of his male characters in a discourse which ultimately highlights the determining role of Gray’s socio-political and cultural environment plays his art. Moreover, Gray talks about the artists he was exposed to as a kid and the manner in which these were influential. Considering its wide scope, this interview may serve as a guide to better understand Gray’s work, the reasons why he merges fantasy and reality  in his novels and short stories, and the socio-political breeding ground of his socialist and civic nationalist political agenda.  


Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Graeme Macdonald ◽  
Carla Sassi

A pivotal scene in the 2019 reinvention of Bill Forsyth’s 1983 film Local Hero into musical theatre involves a hangover[...]


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