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Scotland's Books: The Penguin History of Scottish Literature
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- GenresNonfictionHistory
800 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2007
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About the author
Robert Crawford
193 books18 followersRobert Crawford FRSE FBA (b. 1959) is a Scottish poet, scholar and critic. He is emeritus Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 5, 2020
The poetry of literature...
In this lengthy and detailed tome, Crawford sets out to describe the development of Scottish literature from the earliest times to the present. It is clearly expertly researched, and laid out in a linear timeline that demonstrates how the writers of each generation were influenced by the ones before, as well as by the events of their own time.
Despite the title and the blurb, both of which suggest firmly that this book will be mostly focused on fiction writing (the names mentioned in the blurb are Robert Louis Stevenson, James Kelman, Irving Welsh and Ali Smith), the majority of the book is in fact a history of the poetry of Scotland, which Crawford, himself a poet, seems to suggest has a much more vibrant past and present than our fictional prose. He also talks about the philosophers of the Enlightenment, but doesn’t extend the non-fiction side to the present day, so that we hear nothing, for example, of the excellent work of modern Scottish historians, like Tom Devine or Jenny Wormald, to name but two.
There is, of course, no reason not to include poets and philosophers in a history of Scottish literature, but since Crawford had already written a history of Scottish poetry to which this book is described as a companion piece, I was surprised that this volume was so heavily weighted to poetry too. And since I’m not terribly interested in most poetry, especially poetry written in either Gaelic or Latin since I can’t read either language (though the quotes in the book are all translated, often very well), I found much of the book rather tedious, and found myself eventually skipping over large sections devoted to poets whom even Crawford himself was describing as not terribly good.
On the fictional side, Crawford takes us through from the earliest novelists, such as Smollett, to those writing at the time he published the book – 2007, I believe. He discusses the continuing exodus of Scottish writers over the centuries since the Union (1603), mostly to London but also as part of the diaspora throughout the empire. This is where unfortunately I found myself in disagreement with him again, although I accept that his stance is as valid as my own. Crawford feels that if one is Scottish by birth or heritage, then one’s books count as Scottish even if one chooses to live, work in and write exclusively about another country. I don’t. For me, a Scottish book must be set in Scotland or be in some way about the Scottish experience. Therefore, for example, I do think Ali Smith and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are Scottish writers, but I don’t think that many of their books are Scottish books. Crawford thinks they are. This meant that many of the books he discussed were outwith my own definition of Scottish, so didn’t add much to my quest to read more Scottish fiction. On the other hand, I found his attempt to claim for Scotland some writers from elsewhere who happened to live here for a while, such as Byron, to be more than a bit of a stretch. I still found what he had to say quite interesting, though, especially the idea that it was largely Scottish Londoners who developed the literary imagery of fog-bound Victorian London.
As we got towards the present day, I discovered that our tastes are out of alignment – almost every time, authors he praised highly are ones I’m not enthusiastic about, like Welsh and Kelman, while he is completely dismissive of anyone who veers too far from the heights of literariness, such as McIvanney, Rankin, McDermid. Since Scotland is much better known in the modern world for its influential crime fiction than its literary fiction (or its poetry), this felt like intellectual snobbery to me. One doesn’t have to like all the grim and gritty contemporary crime novelists – I don’t always myself – but any history of Scottish fiction has to recognise their importance in our literary culture.
Also I fear Crawford’s membership of the Edinburgh literati began to cloud his objectivity as we came right up to the present, and he became rather nauseatingly complimentary about writers with whom I’m certain he will hob-nob regularly at Edinburgh literary events. It would probably have been better if he’d stopped just prior to his own time as a Scottish poet.
Overall, then, this was a mixed bag for me. The extensive coverage of poets may be of more appeal to others, and I did like the way he tied the various writers to the events and cultures of their times. He had a good deal to say, and said it well, about the gradual Englishing of the Scottish language after the Union, and the depressing effect this had on our literature for many decades, perhaps centuries, thereafter. But I found much of it a rather tedious read, concentrating too much on listing names of forgotten poets, and not enough on prose fiction, though perhaps there just isn’t much of a Scottish hinterland in prose beyond our few weel-kent stars.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
In this lengthy and detailed tome, Crawford sets out to describe the development of Scottish literature from the earliest times to the present. It is clearly expertly researched, and laid out in a linear timeline that demonstrates how the writers of each generation were influenced by the ones before, as well as by the events of their own time.
Despite the title and the blurb, both of which suggest firmly that this book will be mostly focused on fiction writing (the names mentioned in the blurb are Robert Louis Stevenson, James Kelman, Irving Welsh and Ali Smith), the majority of the book is in fact a history of the poetry of Scotland, which Crawford, himself a poet, seems to suggest has a much more vibrant past and present than our fictional prose. He also talks about the philosophers of the Enlightenment, but doesn’t extend the non-fiction side to the present day, so that we hear nothing, for example, of the excellent work of modern Scottish historians, like Tom Devine or Jenny Wormald, to name but two.
There is, of course, no reason not to include poets and philosophers in a history of Scottish literature, but since Crawford had already written a history of Scottish poetry to which this book is described as a companion piece, I was surprised that this volume was so heavily weighted to poetry too. And since I’m not terribly interested in most poetry, especially poetry written in either Gaelic or Latin since I can’t read either language (though the quotes in the book are all translated, often very well), I found much of the book rather tedious, and found myself eventually skipping over large sections devoted to poets whom even Crawford himself was describing as not terribly good.
On the fictional side, Crawford takes us through from the earliest novelists, such as Smollett, to those writing at the time he published the book – 2007, I believe. He discusses the continuing exodus of Scottish writers over the centuries since the Union (1603), mostly to London but also as part of the diaspora throughout the empire. This is where unfortunately I found myself in disagreement with him again, although I accept that his stance is as valid as my own. Crawford feels that if one is Scottish by birth or heritage, then one’s books count as Scottish even if one chooses to live, work in and write exclusively about another country. I don’t. For me, a Scottish book must be set in Scotland or be in some way about the Scottish experience. Therefore, for example, I do think Ali Smith and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are Scottish writers, but I don’t think that many of their books are Scottish books. Crawford thinks they are. This meant that many of the books he discussed were outwith my own definition of Scottish, so didn’t add much to my quest to read more Scottish fiction. On the other hand, I found his attempt to claim for Scotland some writers from elsewhere who happened to live here for a while, such as Byron, to be more than a bit of a stretch. I still found what he had to say quite interesting, though, especially the idea that it was largely Scottish Londoners who developed the literary imagery of fog-bound Victorian London.
As we got towards the present day, I discovered that our tastes are out of alignment – almost every time, authors he praised highly are ones I’m not enthusiastic about, like Welsh and Kelman, while he is completely dismissive of anyone who veers too far from the heights of literariness, such as McIvanney, Rankin, McDermid. Since Scotland is much better known in the modern world for its influential crime fiction than its literary fiction (or its poetry), this felt like intellectual snobbery to me. One doesn’t have to like all the grim and gritty contemporary crime novelists – I don’t always myself – but any history of Scottish fiction has to recognise their importance in our literary culture.
Also I fear Crawford’s membership of the Edinburgh literati began to cloud his objectivity as we came right up to the present, and he became rather nauseatingly complimentary about writers with whom I’m certain he will hob-nob regularly at Edinburgh literary events. It would probably have been better if he’d stopped just prior to his own time as a Scottish poet.
Overall, then, this was a mixed bag for me. The extensive coverage of poets may be of more appeal to others, and I did like the way he tied the various writers to the events and cultures of their times. He had a good deal to say, and said it well, about the gradual Englishing of the Scottish language after the Union, and the depressing effect this had on our literature for many decades, perhaps centuries, thereafter. But I found much of it a rather tedious read, concentrating too much on listing names of forgotten poets, and not enough on prose fiction, though perhaps there just isn’t much of a Scottish hinterland in prose beyond our few weel-kent stars.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
July 21, 2018
This lengthy book is an overview of the history of Scottish literature with a good deal of specific analysis for particular authors & works. For lovers of Scottish literature, this is a substantial and well-written reference book.
September 24, 2021
I thank this book for getting me over the line to pass my Scot Lit degree. It's comprehensive and just really, really great to get to grips with the Scottish literary canon.
July 12, 2015
THIS is a dense book. Not in the sense of intellectual achievement, of course. Aside from being one of Scotland’s best known (and generally just best) poets, Robert Crawford is Professor of English at St Andrews University. If anyone knows the subject of Scotland’s literary history inside out, it’s him.
No, this is a dense book just in the sheer amount of information it contains. It’s not what you’d call an easy read but it is a rewarding one and even if you’ve read previous books on the subject, the chances are that you’ll find a startling amount of new information and new insight in these pages.
There are another number of other rightly lauded books on this subject — from Cairns Craig and Douglas Gifford’s four-volume study of the late 1980s, to Roderick Watson’s more recent, but less expansive, two-volume work, to Carl McDougall’s Writing Scotland, which is a nice introductory ‘taster’ volume. However, personally speaking, this work rises to the top of the league as the go-to book on the subject.
Not that this is ever anything less than a dry or academic tome. Far from it. Crawford has created a compulsive narrative that while perhaps never galloping along is never less than compulsive. But there’s so much information to be absorbed within it, don’t expect to whizz through it in a weekend.
Where Crawford’s book is exceptionally strong, in my view, is in its melding of Scotland’s history and its literature of the time, rather than looking at them in isolation. Thus, for example, what literature was being created around the time of the counter-Reformation (although it a time where literary creation was considered with the greatest suspicion) is not being created alongside it but existed in a direct and almost symbiotic relationship with the times in which it was written.
This means that the strongest sections of the book are those where Scotland went through its greatest periods of upheaval — thus the Reformation, the counter-Reformation and the Acts of Union are chunky, illuminating chapters but the Victorian age and the 20th century receive rather more cursory treatment. (The fourth volume of the Craig and the second volume of the Watson still having an edge over the Crawford here, although I’d argue that there’s still room for another detailed look at Scottish Literature of the 20th century.)
Another key strength of Crawford’s book is the pains it takes to integrate Gaelic literature into the wider framework of Scotland’s culture. This had been a weakness of previous volumes to my mind, ranging from the cursory to the entirely absent. The ‘big names’ of Gaelic literature get a bit more detailed examination and some of the names get a namecheck that they ordinarily wouldn’t outside of a more specialised work. But the key strength is again that Gaelic literature is not considered as something somehow separate to the work being produced in the rest of the country, but as an important aspect of it in its own right.
If you’re looking for a brief or broad-stroked introduction to Scottish literature then there are probably less time-consuming books. But this is an ideal book to give you a depth of understanding of not just when and where the key works of Scottish literature were written but of also why.
No, this is a dense book just in the sheer amount of information it contains. It’s not what you’d call an easy read but it is a rewarding one and even if you’ve read previous books on the subject, the chances are that you’ll find a startling amount of new information and new insight in these pages.
There are another number of other rightly lauded books on this subject — from Cairns Craig and Douglas Gifford’s four-volume study of the late 1980s, to Roderick Watson’s more recent, but less expansive, two-volume work, to Carl McDougall’s Writing Scotland, which is a nice introductory ‘taster’ volume. However, personally speaking, this work rises to the top of the league as the go-to book on the subject.
Not that this is ever anything less than a dry or academic tome. Far from it. Crawford has created a compulsive narrative that while perhaps never galloping along is never less than compulsive. But there’s so much information to be absorbed within it, don’t expect to whizz through it in a weekend.
Where Crawford’s book is exceptionally strong, in my view, is in its melding of Scotland’s history and its literature of the time, rather than looking at them in isolation. Thus, for example, what literature was being created around the time of the counter-Reformation (although it a time where literary creation was considered with the greatest suspicion) is not being created alongside it but existed in a direct and almost symbiotic relationship with the times in which it was written.
This means that the strongest sections of the book are those where Scotland went through its greatest periods of upheaval — thus the Reformation, the counter-Reformation and the Acts of Union are chunky, illuminating chapters but the Victorian age and the 20th century receive rather more cursory treatment. (The fourth volume of the Craig and the second volume of the Watson still having an edge over the Crawford here, although I’d argue that there’s still room for another detailed look at Scottish Literature of the 20th century.)
Another key strength of Crawford’s book is the pains it takes to integrate Gaelic literature into the wider framework of Scotland’s culture. This had been a weakness of previous volumes to my mind, ranging from the cursory to the entirely absent. The ‘big names’ of Gaelic literature get a bit more detailed examination and some of the names get a namecheck that they ordinarily wouldn’t outside of a more specialised work. But the key strength is again that Gaelic literature is not considered as something somehow separate to the work being produced in the rest of the country, but as an important aspect of it in its own right.
If you’re looking for a brief or broad-stroked introduction to Scottish literature then there are probably less time-consuming books. But this is an ideal book to give you a depth of understanding of not just when and where the key works of Scottish literature were written but of also why.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews