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Occasional Papers series no. 14

CROSSING THE HIGHLAND LINE

Cross-Currents in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Writing

Edited by Christopher MacLachlan

Published in: Paperback
By: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2009
Price: £19.95
ISBN 978-0-948877-88-9

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The eighteenth century was a time of dramatic change and drastic upheaval in Scotland, from the Treaty of Union with England in 1707, through Jacobite rebellions in the Highlands, to the Scottish Enlightenment. This was the century when Scottish writing exploded across the globe, from Hume and Smith, from Macpherson’s Ossian, from Burns and from Scott, transforming world literature and culture. Crossing the Highland Line is a new collection of essays examining this crucial period, exploring the literary connections and influences across Scotland, and tracing the links between those who wrote in Scots and English and those who wrote in Gaelic. These essays, from fourteen leading scholars, show that the whole of Scotland – Highland and Lowland, high cultures and low – participated in the reshaping of literature in the eighteenth century. The Highland Line does not divide.

These essays are based on papers originally presented at the 34th ASLS Annual Conference, ‘Crossing the Highland Line’, held at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye, 20–22 May 2005.

CONTENTS
Introduction

  • Contacts and tensions in Highland and Lowland culture (Edward J. Cowan)
  • ‘Poured out extensive, and of watery wealth’: Scotland in Thomson’s The Seasons (Gerard Carruthers)
  • Compàirteachadh an Urraim: Mac Mhgr Alastair ’s a’ Ghalldachd (Raghnall MacilleDhuibh)
  • Sharing the Honour: Mac Mhgr Alastair and the Lowlands (Ronald Black)
  • Literary Edinburgh in the Time of Alexander MacDonald (Christopher MacLachlan)
  • Orm a Laigheas Gach Seanchas: The Gaelic Songs of John Roy Stuart (Neil MacGregor)
  • The Jacobite Song: Was There a Scottish Aisling? (Murray Pittock)
  • Evangelicalism, Ossianism And The Enlightenment: The Many Masks Of Dugald Buchanan (Donald E. Meek)
  • The Place of Macpherson’s Ossian in Scottish Literature (Kenneth Simpson)
  • The Environmentalism of Donnchadh Bàn: Pragmatic or Mythic? (Meg Bateman)
  • The Lasses Reply to Mr Burns: Women Poets and Songwriters in the Lowlands (Margery Palmer McCulloch)
  • Fresh Fields for Inquiry: Travellers to the Highlands in the Eighteenth Century (E. Mairi MacArthur)
  • Highland Rogues and the Roots of Highland Romanticism (Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart)
  • The Poetry of William Ross (William Gillies)