| University of St Andrews School of English Honours Modules EN3055 and EN3056 Background to Scottish Literature 1. Geography The four main areas of Scotland are: 1. The Southern Uplands (The Borders) - mainly hill country, much rough moorland. Sheep grazing, textile industry. 2. The Central Lowlands - fertile farmland, grain crops; coal deposits; main centres of population. Heavy industries, now replaced by electronics. 3. The Highlands - mountains, forests, lochs and rivers; now sparsely populated. Cattle-rearing; tourism. 4. The Islands - from south-west to far north, large and small. Fishing, small farming. Until about 250 years ago, it was easier to sail round the Highlands than travel through them, and as easy to sail to Ireland or Norway as to walk or ride to England. 2. Languages 1. Gaelic - a Celtic language closely related to Irish Gaelic, from which it developed. Indeed, up to the seventeenth century the Gaelic part of Scotland was essentially part of the same culture and language area as Ireland. At its peak around the ninth century Gaelic was the language of most of mainland Scotland and the Western Isles, and well into last century was still spoken throughout the Highlands, but has now shrunk to about 80,000 native speakers, the largest group living in Glasgow (there are still some Gaelic speakers in eastern Canada). There has been a revival of interest recently, with more teaching and learning Gaelic, and more government funding for Gaelic television. 2. Scots - a development of a northern form of Old English which by the fifteenth century had become a distinct language, used by the court and throughout the Lowlands and southern Scotland. Though it remains the common speech of many Scots, from the sixteenth century onwards it began to be replaced by English in government, religion, education and literature. In the eighteenth century, however, its use in verse was revived (by Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns), and again in the 1920s (by Hugh MacDiarmid), and recently the literary use of urban Scots has become significant (Leonard, Kelman, Welsh). | |
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