Scottish Literature

SCOTTISH LITERATURE. In a survey of the whole stream of Scottish literature two main currents may be recognized, the one literary and often of an artificial or academic type; the other popular. The former is represented by the group known as the Scottish Chaucerians, by the 17th century court poets, by the "English" writings of Edinburgh literati of the 18th century; the latter by the domestic and "rustic" muse from Christis Kirk on the Grene to the work of the 18th century revival begun in Ram say. There is, of course, frequent interaction between these two movements, but recognition of their separate development is necessary to the understanding of such contemporary contrasts as the Tlzrissil and the Rois and Peblis to the Play, Drummond and Montgomerie, Ramsay and Hume. In our own day, when the literary medium of Scotland is identical with that of England, the term Scottish literature has been reserved for certain dialectal revivals, more or less bookish in origin, and often as artificial and as unrelated to existing conditions as Chaucerian "Ynglis" of the 5th century was to the popular speech of that time.

The Early Period.

Down to the earlier decades of the 15th century the vernacular remains show the main characteristics of "Northern English," and deal with the familiar mediaeval kinds of romance and rhymed chronicle. After the Wars of Independ ence a national or Scottish sentiment is discernible, but it does not colour the literature of this age as it does that of later periods when political and social conditions had suffered serious change.

The earliest extant verse has been associated with Thomas of Erceldoune (q.v.), called The Rhymer, but the problem of the Scot's share in reworking the Tristram saga is in some important points undetermined. Uncertainty also hangs round the later Huchown (q.v.). Contemporary with the work of the latter are a few anonymous fragments such as the verses on the death of Alexander II., first quoted by Wyntoun in the 15th century, and the snatches on the "Maydens of Englelonde" and "Long beerdys," quoted by Fabyan. The type of alliterative romance shown in the work ascribed to Huchown continued to be popular throughout the period (e.g., The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane), and lingered on in the next in The Buke of the Howlat by Holland (q.v.), the anonymous Rauf Coil3ear of the third quarter of the 15th century and in a few pieces of burlesque.

Independent of this group of alliterative romances is the not less important body of historical verse associated with the names of John Barbour (q.v.), Andrew of Wyntoun, and, in the mid dle period, Harry the Minstrel (q.v.). Barbour, called the father of Scottish poetry, apparently for no other reason than that he is the oldest writer who has held place in popular esteem, is without literary influence. Later political fervour has grouped him with the author of the Wallace, and treated the unequal pair as the singers of a militant patriotism, but the "Scottish prejudice" which Burns tells us was "poured" into his veins from the Wallace is not obvious in the Brus.

The Middle Period.

To this period (extending, roughly, throughout the 15th and 16th centuries) belongs the important group of Middle Scots "makars" or poets who, in the traditional phrase of the literary historians, made "the Golden Age of Scot tish Poetry." It is in the writings of this time that we find the practice of the artificial literary dialect known as Middle Scots; but there is also in this period the first clear indication of other literary types of great prospective interest. The prevailing in fluence in the writers of greater account is Chaucerian. These writers, to whom the name of "The Scottish Chaucerians" has been given, carried over from the south much of the diction and not a little of the literary habit of the master-poet. In these respects they are superior to Lydgate, Occleve and other southern contemporaries; and not rarely they approach Chaucer in sheer accomplishment. The first example of this new style is the Kingis Quair of James I. (q.v.), in which the indebtedness, even when full allowance is made for the young poet's individuality, is direct and clear. The language, like that of the later Lancelot of the Laik and the Quare of Jelousy, represents no spoken dia lect. Whether it is to be explained by the deliberate adoption of southern literary forms by the author, which his enthusiasm for Chaucer and the circumstances of his sojourn in England made inevitable, or whether the single text is a Scottish scribe's ren dering, is still a problem. The balance of evidence is in favour of the former, which is the traditional view.