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Determinations
Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and British Culture
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
7 people want to read
About the author
Cairns Craig
55 books4 followersRobert Cairns Craig, OBE, FRSE, FBA is a Scottish literary scholar, specialising in Scottish and modernist literature. He has been Glucksman Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen since 2005. Before that, he taught at the University of Edinburgh, serving as Head of the English Literature Department from 1997 to 2003. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 11, 2022
I read this to see how Cairns Craig developed his essay Body in the Kit Bag (BitKB), first published in the 1979 inaugural edition of Cencrastus, a magazine dedicated to the development of Scottish culture. The essay examines a lack of history within which a Scottish culture can successfully have claimed to have developed. It’s been a while since I’ve read an academic book and I struggled with some of the sections. In Out of History (written 1996), BitKB subsequently forms part of a wider discourse around the marginalisation and development of Scottish culture.
Following the Highland Clearances, most Scottish cultural development was subsequently tied to the Union. As the Industrial Age accelerated progress, Scottish culture became intrinsically linked into that of England. Whilst English Literature flourished, Scottish (along with Welsh and Irish) Literature struggled to be recognised as a legitimate entity despite producing key 19th Century authors such as Scott and Stevenson, not to mention the Enlightenment philosophers. The tradition of a self-stated high English culture was strengthened at the expense of marginalised cultures; it absorbed key figures and pieces of work into its own body, subsequently weakening the standing of peripheral cultures. As Scottish industrialisation increased, it was alongside its English neighbour. Scotland was creating no history it could identify as its own and could only look back to a romanticised version of itself. A retelling of the Scotch Myth, adroitly achieved by Scott; a myth of the civil bourgeois urbanite entering the land of the lawless, savage Highlander.
The scope of this book is broad and this short review can’t even come close to covering its key arguments. I struggled with the section delving deep into Marxist theory - an understanding of some of the concepts and authors would help - but this part was pretty fundamental to a core concept of working class and (English) nationalism. The section on Orwell was fascinating and I hadn’t appreciated just how English Orwell’s brand of socialism was, based on colonial might and its perceived standing in the world. What was fascinating was just how much the English left and right clung on to the same colonial tropes to define their nationhood. The main difference being that elite ruling classes ensured that the right laid claim to this identity; the left’s claim deemed less legitimate.
I loved the short section Being Between. This is the kind of lit crit that really sparked a fire within me in the 90s. Beginning with the difficulty the English tradition had incorporating Yeats into its canon, Craig goes on to examine the growth of Scottish Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s from a very specific burgeoning Scottish literature scene as a rallying cry to suppression of the dialect voice. This section goes on to examine how Leonard, Kelman, Lochhead and Gray subsequently take on this mantle with significant aplomb.
Politically, much has changed since this book was written but it is still relevant and a useful reference. I feel that some of the concepts quickly introduced towards the end of the book such as colonial impact on nations’ environment and cultural development (to fight colonialism you need to adopt the methods of the colonisers) would be strengthened today. Three and a half stars but a dense read if you aren’t interested in the subject matter.
Following the Highland Clearances, most Scottish cultural development was subsequently tied to the Union. As the Industrial Age accelerated progress, Scottish culture became intrinsically linked into that of England. Whilst English Literature flourished, Scottish (along with Welsh and Irish) Literature struggled to be recognised as a legitimate entity despite producing key 19th Century authors such as Scott and Stevenson, not to mention the Enlightenment philosophers. The tradition of a self-stated high English culture was strengthened at the expense of marginalised cultures; it absorbed key figures and pieces of work into its own body, subsequently weakening the standing of peripheral cultures. As Scottish industrialisation increased, it was alongside its English neighbour. Scotland was creating no history it could identify as its own and could only look back to a romanticised version of itself. A retelling of the Scotch Myth, adroitly achieved by Scott; a myth of the civil bourgeois urbanite entering the land of the lawless, savage Highlander.
The scope of this book is broad and this short review can’t even come close to covering its key arguments. I struggled with the section delving deep into Marxist theory - an understanding of some of the concepts and authors would help - but this part was pretty fundamental to a core concept of working class and (English) nationalism. The section on Orwell was fascinating and I hadn’t appreciated just how English Orwell’s brand of socialism was, based on colonial might and its perceived standing in the world. What was fascinating was just how much the English left and right clung on to the same colonial tropes to define their nationhood. The main difference being that elite ruling classes ensured that the right laid claim to this identity; the left’s claim deemed less legitimate.
I loved the short section Being Between. This is the kind of lit crit that really sparked a fire within me in the 90s. Beginning with the difficulty the English tradition had incorporating Yeats into its canon, Craig goes on to examine the growth of Scottish Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s from a very specific burgeoning Scottish literature scene as a rallying cry to suppression of the dialect voice. This section goes on to examine how Leonard, Kelman, Lochhead and Gray subsequently take on this mantle with significant aplomb.
Politically, much has changed since this book was written but it is still relevant and a useful reference. I feel that some of the concepts quickly introduced towards the end of the book such as colonial impact on nations’ environment and cultural development (to fight colonialism you need to adopt the methods of the colonisers) would be strengthened today. Three and a half stars but a dense read if you aren’t interested in the subject matter.
Displaying 1 of 1 review