Annotation
OBJECTIVES
This course is designed as a primer in the key texts and movements in Scottish Literature. Covering major authors from the 16 to 21st centuries, it provides students with a basic feel for the texture, themes and distinctiveness of literature in Latin, English, Scots and Gaelic in Scotland. Students are exposed to a variety of Scottish texts, ancient and modern spanning 500 years of the nation's literature. Reading is compulsory and students will expect to cover approximately one of the listed texts (selected with brevity in mind) per week.
ASSESSMENT
Classes are organised around discussion/micro-lectures of the assigned texts and assessment is on the basis of attendance (max 3 absences) participation (presentations) and submission of two position papers(1000 words each). MA students must submit a longer paper(details on application).
REQUIRED READING*
Henryson-Testament of Cresseid/Dunbar- The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo
George Buchanan-Elegy for John Calvin/Arthur Johnston- Edinburgh/Glasgow
Robert Burns - Tam O'Shanter/To a mouse/Ae fond kiss +various verse epistles
Sir Walter Scott-Waverley
James Hogg-The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
T.S.Eliot- Was There a Scottish Literature?(The Athenaeum,1919)
Hugh MacDiarmid- A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle/On a Raised Beach/The Watergaw
Sorley MacLean-Spring Tide/Neap Tide
Liz Lochhead- Mary Queen of Scots got her Head Chopped off
James Kelman- How late it was, how late
Irvine Welsh- Filth
Janice Galloway- The Trick is to Keep Breathing
Ian Banks- The Wasp Factory
* Texts are supplemented with ancillary readings where appropriate. The core texts listed as the basis of class discussions and must be read.