Gael and Lowlander in Scottish Literature: Cross-currents in Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth Century

The nineteenth century saw the romanticisation of the Highlander, the rise of tartanry and the emergence of the modern Scottish tourist industry. It also witnessed the worst excesses of the Clearances and the beginnings of an exodus from the Highlands to the industrial cities and to the colonies. The languages, peoples and cultures of Highland and Lowland Scotland mixed and mingled as never before, influencing and shaping each other in often unexpected ways. Gael and Lowlander in Scottish Literature explores the interactions and intersections between Highland and Lowland poetry, prose, drama and song, in English, Scots and Gaelic. Ranging from Sir Walter Scott to the writers and artists of the fin de siècle Celtic Revival, these fourteen essays show how the crossing and re-crossing of the Highland Line shaped Scottish literature in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and how it continues to do so today.