Description
Book SynopsisThis fascinating new study is about cultural change and continuities. At the core of the book are discrete literary studies of Scotland and Shakespeare, Walter Scott, R.L. Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, the modern Scottish Renaissance of the 1920s and more recent cultural and literary phenomena. The central theme of literature and popular ''representation'' recontextualises literary analysis in a broader, multi-faceted picture involving all the arts and the changing sense of what ''the popular'' might be in a modern nation. New technologies alter forms of cultural production and the book charts a way through these forms, from oral poetry and song to the novel, and includes studies of paintings, classical music, socialist drama, TV, film and comic books. The international context for mass media cultural production is examined as the story of the intrinsic curiosity of the imagination and the intensely local aspect of Scotland''s cultural self-representation unfolds.
Trade Review'This is a remarkable book in its diversity of subjects... but its strength is the provocation of thought in new directions.' - Glasgow Sunday Herald
'...as an overview of a wide period, tied together historically and conecptually, it thoroughly justified its wide ambition and should be vital to anyone in Scot Lit.' - Michael Gardiner, Scottish Studies Review
'...a thought-provoking discussion of a central issue in post-Union cultural history, that of the conflicting, stereotyped or idealised representation(s) of Scotland's stateless nationhood...The first book-length inquiry on this subject and the most challenging, so far, in terms of both the variety and the number of 'texts' analysed - mainly literary, but also filmic, musical and visual...' - Carla Sassi, Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies
Table of ContentsPreface: The Representation of the People List of Illustrations Acknowledgements PART ONE: THE WORLD OF THINGS UNDONE Introduction: The Terms of the Question Shakespeare and Scotland Foundational Texts of Modern Scottish Literature PART TWO: LOST WORLDS AND DISTANT DRUMS Walter Scott and the Whistler: Tragedy and the Enlightenment Imagination Treasure Island and Time: Childhood, Quickness and Robert Louis Stevenson In Pursuit of Lost Worlds: Arthur Conan Doyle, Amos Tutuola and Wilson Harris PART THREE: THE THEATRE OF INFINITY The International Brigade: Modernism and the Scottish Renaissance Nobody's Children: Orphans and Their Ancestors in Popular Scottish Fiction after 1945 It Happened Fast and It Was Dark: Cinema, Theatre, Television, Comic Books Conclusion: The Magnetic North Notes Bibliography Discography Index
