The Scottish Enlightenment and Literary Culture

Edited by Ronnie Young; Ralph McLean and Kenneth Simpson - Contributions by David Allan; Pam Perkins; Catherine Jones; Ruth Perry; Charles Bradford Bow; Colin Kidd; Corey E. Andrews; Sandro Jung; Deidre Dawson; Andrew Hook and Sarah Winter

This collection of essays explores the role played by imaginative writing in the Scottish Enlightenment and its interaction with the values and activities of that movement. Across a broad range of areas via specially commissioned essays by experts in each field, the volume examines the reciprocal traffic between the groundbreaking intellectual project of eighteenth-century Scotland and the imaginative literature of the period, demonstrating that the innovations made by the Scottish literati laid the foundations for developments in imaginative writing in Scotland and further afield. In doing so, it provide a context for the widespread revaluation of the literary culture of the Scottish Enlightenment and the part that culture played in the project of Enlightenment.

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 314 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-61148-800-5 • Hardback • November 2016 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-61148-801-2 • eBook • November 2016 • $116.50 • (£90.00)

Series: Studies in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, History / Europe / General, Literary Criticism / Modern / 18th Century

The Scottish Enlightenment and Literary Culture

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This collection of essays explores the role played by imaginative writing in the Scottish Enlightenment and its interaction with the values and activities of that movement. Across a broad range of areas via specially commissioned essays by experts in each field, the volume examines the reciprocal traffic between the groundbreaking intellectual project of eighteenth-century Scotland and the imaginative literature of the period, demonstrating that the innovations made by the Scottish literati laid the foundations for developments in imaginative writing in Scotland and further afield. In doing so, it provide a context for the widespread revaluation of the literary culture of the Scottish Enlightenment and the part that culture played in the project of Enlightenment.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Bucknell University Press

Pages: 314 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜

978-1-61148-800-5 • Hardback • November 2016 • $123.00 • (£95.00)

978-1-61148-801-2 • eBook • November 2016 • $116.50 • (£90.00)

Series: Studies in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

Subjects: Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, History / Europe / General, Literary Criticism / Modern / 18th Century

Author

Ralph McLean is curator of manuscripts for the Long Eighteenth Century at the National Library of Scotland.
The late Ken Simpson (1943–2013) was a distinguished scholar of Scottish Literature and expert on Robert Burns.
Ronnie Young teaches Scottish Enlightenment at the University of Glasgow.

Table of Contents

List Of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: “Winged Horses, Fiery Dragons and Monstrous Giants”: Historiography and Imaginative Literature in the Scottish Enlightenmentby David Allan
Chapter 2: Regulating Reality By Imagination:Fact, Fiction, and Travel in the Scottish Enlightenment by Pam Perkins
Chapter 3: Tobias Smollett, Travel Writing, and Medical Botanyby Catherine Jones
Chapter 4: Balladry and the Scottish Enlightenmentby Ruth Perrry
Chapter 5: Enlightenment and Ecclesiastical Satire before Burnsby Colin Kidd
Chapter 6: “Sympathetick Curiosity”: Drama, Moral Thought, and the Science of Human Natureby Ronnie Young
Chapter 7: Hugh Blair and the Influence of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres on Imaginative Literatureby Ralph Mclean
Chapter 8: In Pursuit of “Moral Beauty” and Intellectual Pleasures: Dugald Stewart and Edinburgh’s Literary Culture, 1762–1810by Charles Bradford Bow
Chapter 9: The Mirror Club:Periodicals as Tastemakers in Eighteenth-Century Scotlandby Corey E. Andrews
Chapter 10: “A Scotch Poetical Library”: The Morisons of Perth, Print Culture, and the Construction of an Enlightenment Scottish Literary Canonby Sandro Jung
Chapter 11: Fingal Meets Vercingetorix:Ossianism, Celtomania, and the Transformation of French National Identity in Post-Revolutionary Franceby Deidre Dawson
Chapter 12: The Scottish Enlightenment and American Literary Cultureby Andrew Hook
Chapter 13: Scottish Enlightenment Concepts of Equity in the Nineteenth-Century British Novelby Sarah Winter
Bibliography
Index
About The Contributors

Reviews

The Scottish Enlightenment and Literary Culture brings into conjunction two capacious concepts that are difficult to define: the Enlightenment and literature. . . . The volume has something to offer both readers who are new to the field and those who are specialists.
— Eighteenth-Century Fiction