Scottish Literary Review

SCOTTISH LITERARY REVIEW is the leading international journal for Scottish literary studies, committed to approaching Scottish literature in an expansive way through exploration of its various social, cultural, historical and philosophical contexts, and of literary forms, both traditional and new. We are interested in comparative work with literatures from beyond Scotland, the interaction of literature with expressive media such as theatre and film, and in encouraging debate on issues of contemporary significance related to Scottish literary studies, so that SLR is both responsive to, and creative of, new readings and approaches. The journal is listed in the MLA International Bibliography and issues from 2013 onwards are accessible online as part of Project MUSE's Premium Collection.

Editor's Introduction

This issue begins with a plenary lecture by Alasdair A. Macdonald from the Association for Scottish Literary Studies annual conference (2016) on the theme of 'Literature and Religion in Scotland'. Professor Macdonald's lecture deals with early, medieval and renaissance religious writing and becomes a refreshing revisionary interrogation of how religion is located generally within the historic assumptions of Scottish literary studies. Peer-reviewed as this piece has been like all the others, its original, entertaining, digressive oral format has been largely retained rather than adapted to fit the usual conventions of this journal. John-Mark Philo's treatment of John Bellenden's translation of Livy is a nice fusion of the analysis of textual composition and of clever, creative translation. Vivienne Dunstan provides book-history of an eighteenth-century variety with her study of chapmen and also turning to a form of 'popular culture' are Raymond McCluskey and Linden Bicket. They offer path-breaking attention to the neglected poets, John Luby and James Lynch, writing powerfully in the Scottish Catholic press of the late nineteenth century. Robert Ellis Hosmer's reading of Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat highlights the resurgent energy apparent at the aforementioned ASLS conference, where religion is taken seriously as a theme and as a context in Scottish writing. Timothy Baker is innovative in his reading of contemporary Scottish fiction treated in the context of Enlightenment philosophy read through a modern theoretical lens. Laura Severin provides critical commentary where, arguably, there is an undeserved dearth: on the poetry of Valerie Gillies. A shorter note is included on Alexander Wilson's manuscript notebook, and the issue is rounded out with both sadness and celebration in Murray Pittock's obituary of one of the finest twentieth-century scholars of Scottish Literature, Ronnie Jack.

The next issue of Scottish Literary Review will be a part-special one, on the theme of 'Antipodes' with Guest Co-Editor, Professor Liam Mcllvanney of Otago University in Dunedin.