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Scottish Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion PDF

257 Pages·2017·8.593 MB·English
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S ‘This collection of essays should be a “must” for those whose interests focus on c the late Victorian cultural world, as it is observed through the lens of the Gothic. In private or in academic and public libraries, this book will doubtless o enjoy a long shelf life.’ t Benjamin F. Fisher, Professor Emeritus, University of Mississippi t ‘Very professionally edited by two world leaders in Gothic studies, this collection i offers well-written, sharply documented, and “heart of the matter” accounts by S experts on each significant realm of the Victorian Gothic, along with an h excellent bibliography of further readings. It is therefore a highly valuable book for students of the Gothic world-wide.’ Jerrold E. Hogle, University Distinguished Professor, G The University of Arizona o The first multi-disciplinary scholarly consideration of the t Victorian Gothic h These fourteen chapters, each written by an acknowledged expert in the field, provide an i invaluable insight into the complex and various Gothic forms of the nineteenth century. c Covering a range of diverse contexts, the chapters focus on science, medicine, Queer theory, imperialism, nationalism, and gender. Together with further chapters on the ghost story, realism, the fin de siècle, pulp fictions, sensation fiction, and the Victorian way of death, the Companion provides the most complete overview of the Victorian Gothic to date. The book is an essential resource for students and scholars working on the Gothic, Victorian literature and culture, and critical theory. C Andrew Smith is Reader in Nineteenth Century English Literature at the University of ana Sheffield. His published books include The Ghost Story 1840–1920: A Cultural History dro (2010), Gothic Literature (2007, revised 2013), Victorian Demons (2004) and Gothic Ml ScottiSh M Radicalism (2000). o E Wincillulidaem B Heyuongdh eDs rias cPurloa f(e2s0so0r0 o),f tGwoot hstiuc dSetnutd gieusi date sB taot hD Srapcau Ulan, iavnedrs Tityh.e HHiiss tpouribclails hDeidc tbioonoakrsy nica Gargaretdited b Gothic of Gothic Literature (2013). He is the founder editor of Gothic Studies, the refereed journal of er Dy ma the International Gothic Association. v a nis ào An Edinburgh Companion n ISBN 978-1-4744-0819-6 9 781474 408196 Edited by Cover image: Abney Park Cemetery, London © William Hughes. Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà Cover design: McColmDesign.co.uk Scottish Gothic Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic Series Editors Andrew Smith, University of Sheffield William Hughes, Bath Spa University This series provides a comprehensive overview of the Gothic from the eighteenth century to the present day. Each volume takes either a period, place, or theme and explores their diverse attributes, contexts and texts via completely original essays. The volumes provide an authoritative critical tool for both scholars and students of the Gothic. Volumes in the series are edited by leading scholars in their field and make a cutting-edge contribution to the field of Gothic studies. Each volume: • Presents an innovative and critically challenging exploration of the historical, thematic and theoretical understandings of the Gothic from the eighteenth century to the present day • Provides a critical forum in which ideas about Gothic history and established Gothic themes are challenged • Supports the teaching of the Gothic at an advanced undergraduate level and at masters level • Helps readers to rethink ideas concerning periodisation and to question the critical approaches which have been taken to the Gothic Published Titles The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion Andrew Smith and William Hughes Romantic Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion Angela Wright and Dale Townshend American Gothic Culture: An Edinburgh Companion Joel Faflak and Jason Haslam Women and the Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik Scottish Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà Visit the Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic website at: www.edinburghuni versitypress.com/series/EDCG Scottish Gothic An Edinburgh Companion Edited by Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting- edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organisation Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà, 2017 © the chapters their several authors, 2017 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 0819 6 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 0820 2 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 0821 9 (epub) The right of Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Contents Acknowledgements vii 1. Borderlands of Identity and the Aesthetics of Disjuncture: An Introduction to Scottish Gothic 1 Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà 2. ‘The Celtic Century’ and the Genesis of Scottish Gothic 14 Nick Groom 3. The Politics and Poetics of the ‘Scottish Gothic’ from Ossian to Otranto and Beyond 28 Carol Margaret Davison 4. Robert Burns and the Scottish Bawdy Politic 42 Hamish Mathison 5. Scottish Gothic Drama 59 Barbara A. E. Bell 6. Scottish Gothic Poetry 75 Alan Riach 7. Calvinist and Covenanter Gothic 89 Alison Milbank 8. Gothic Scott 102 Fiona Robertson 9. Gothic Hogg 115 Scott Brewster vi Contents 10. ‘The Singular Wrought Out into the Strange and Mystical’: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and the Transformation of Terror 129 Robert Morrison 11. Gothic Stevenson 142 Roderick Watson 12. J. M. Barrie’s Gothic: Ghosts, Fairy Tales and Lost Children 155 Sarah Dunnigan 13. The ‘nouveau frisson’: Muriel Spark’s Gothic Fiction 168 Gerard Carruthers 14. Scottish Gothic and the Moving Image: A Tale of Two Traditions 181 Duncan Petrie 15. New Frankensteins; or, the Body Politic 195 Timothy C. Baker 16. Queer Scottish Gothic 208 Kate Turner 17. Authorship, ‘Ghost-filled’ Islands and the Haunting Feminine: Contemporary Scottish Female Gothic 222 Monica Germanà Notes on Contributors 236 Index 240 Acknowledgements We would like to thank our series editors, Andy Smith (University of Sheffield) and Bill Hughes (Bath Spa University), for inviting us to col- laborate on this research project, which, we hope, will pave the way for more work in the field of Scottish Gothic. We also owe special thanks to Edinburgh University Press’s Jackie Jones, Publisher, and Assistant Commissioning Editor, Adela Rauchova, for her ongoing support throughout the publishing process, and the Press for their financial support towards the illustrations in the volume. We are also indebted to a number of agencies, scholars and colleagues who have helped us in various ways. Special thanks go to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a Standard Research Grant (2008–11) in support of research undertaken towards this volume, Alex Warwick (University of Westminster) for granting research time to support the development of this book, the University of Windsor for research support in the form of a Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant (2015), Kate Turner (University of Westminster) for completing work on the collection’s index, and Ashley Girty (McGill University) for editorial assistance on our joint Introduction. Last but not least, we would like to thank the collection’s authors for their tremendous patience and commitment to this project, and their insightful contributions that will offer innovative ways of thinking about Scottish Gothic for generations of future scholars. Carol Margaret Davison (University of Windsor) Monica Germanà (University of Westminster) To my beloved parents, Alexandra Mc Lean and William Davison, whose intense relationship to their Scottishness resonates at the heart of this book. C. D. To Elliott Patrick Germanà Murray (b. 14 January 2016), for his spectacular entry into the world alongside this book. M. G. Chapter 1 Borderlands of Identity and the Aesthetics of Disjuncture: An Introduction to Scottish Gothic Carol Margaret Davison and Monica Germanà ‘How can a “Scottish Gothic” be conceived?’ So asks Nick Groom in his provocative chapter in this collection, in the face of a histori- cal, theoretical and political conundrum identified recently by other critics. In his article devoted to ‘Shakespeare, Ossian and the Problem of “Scottish Gothic”’, for example, Dale Townshend (2014) wrestles with the category of the Scottish Gothic given its union of seemingly irrecon- cilable terms whose yoking, he suggests, is counter-intuitive. According to Townshend, ‘Scotland’s political and historical relationship to things “Gothic” . . . [is] a vexed and complicated issue’ that renders discussion of the anachronistic category of the ‘Scottish Gothic’ a fraught enter- prise. One must adopt, he says, ‘a greater sensitivity to [the] political history’ of the eighteenth century (2014: 227), when the Goth and the Celt/Scot were generally positioned as discrete ethnographic categories. The idea of a ‘Gothic Scotland’, however, did not prove difficult to conceptualise in the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth when a Romanticised portrait of Scotland furnished the nation’s most prevalent cultural image. As Ian Duncan astutely observes in regard to the politics of literary history, it was ‘Scotland’s fate to have become a Romantic object or commodity’ rather than a site of Romantic produc- tion (Duncan et al. 2004: 2). Such an objectification was ironic given the existence of Scottish Enlightenment philosophy and its rationally fuelled preoccupations. That objectification was also, notably, expressed in two forms – in both the lighter and darker, more Gothic, shades of Romanticism. Despite the differences in these two manifestations, the Highlands served in both as a synecdoche for a Scotland that exemplified two primary attitudes towards ‘British’ history and rapid modernisation. In the first, tourist literature of the era ‘deprecate[d] Scotland’s modern developments’, imagining the Scottish nation as ‘immune to the passage of time’ (Grenier 2005: 136, 135). This immunity served an agenda

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