#scottish literature

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson is available to read here

#novella #novellas #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #robert louis stevenson #english language literature #scottish literature #19th century literature #have you read this short fiction? #book polls #completed polls #links to text

[empirearchives]

Herman Melville on Napoleon’s love for Ossian

Context: Ossian is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as Fingal (1761) and Temora (1763), and later combined under the title The Poems of Ossian.

“I am rejoiced to see Hazlitt speak for Ossian. There is nothing more contemptable in that contemptable man (tho' good poet, in his department) Wordsworth, than his contempt for Ossian. And nothing that more raises my idea of Napoleon than his great admiration for him.—The loneliness of the spirit of Ossian harmonized with the loneliness of the greatness of Napoleon.”

Melville wrote this around 1862 in the margins of his copy of Hazlitt’s Lectures on the English Comic Writers and Lectures on the English Poets

Source: Hershel Parker, Herman Melville: A Biography - Volume 2, p. 436

#Herman Melville #Melville #Napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #Hershel Parker #Herman Melville biography #Herman Melville: A Biography #Hazlitt #Lectures on the English Comic Writers #Ossian #romanticism #napoleonic era #napoleonic #american literature #American lit #american renaissance #Wordsworth #the poems of Ossian #celtic mythology #fingal #temora #british literature #Scottish #scottish literature #Scotland

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

She would live out her days at Auchnasaugh, a bookish spinster attended by cats and parrots, until that time when she might become ethereal, pure spirit untainted by the woes of flesh, a phantom drifting with the winds. What fun she would have as a ghost. She could hardly wait.

Elspeth Barker, O Caledonia

#book quotes #literature #elsbeth barker #o Caledonia #books and libraries #books and reading #quotes #literary #scottish literature

[aniaks]

For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

#sir walter scott #ivanhoe #quotes #literature #books #classics #classic literature #book quotes #dark academia #scottish literature

[sophiaphile]

". . .I felt for the first time who he really is—a tortured little boy who hates cruelty as much as I do but thinks himself a strong man because he can pretend to like it. He is as poor and desperate as my lost daughter, but only inside. Outside he is perfectly comfortable."

—Alasdair Gray, Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer

#alasdair gray #poor things #scottish literature #bella baxter #harry astley #patriarchy

[hyperions-fate]

The body-spirit dichotomy, or the body-intellect dichotomy, is a bitter prideful cleaving of the wholeness of a man's nature. Earth and man and sun and bread are one substance; they are made out of the original breath-smitten dust. Men must never despise the flames and darknesses they have come from. The best earth-gold is the cornstalk in August.

George Mackay Brown, Magnus (1973)

#George Mackay Brown #Magnus #Scottish literature #Orkney

[burningvelvet]

more random excerpts from lord byron’s diaries (here’s the first post)

“When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), — sleep, eating, and swilling — buttoning and unbuttoning — how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse.”

“If this had been begun ten years ago, and faithfully kept!!! — heigho! there are too many things I wish never to have remembered, as it is.“

“Dined — (damn this pen!)”

“Oh! there is an organ playing in the street — a waltz, too! I must leave off to listen. They are playing a waltz, which I have heard ten thousand times at the balls in London, between 1812 and 1815. Music is a strange thing.”

“How strange are our thoughts, &c. &c. &c.“

“It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a ‘grand peut-être’ — but still it is a grand one. Every body clings to it — the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is still persuaded that he is immortal.”

“I wish one was — I don’t know what I wish. It is odd I never set myself seriously to wishing without attaining it — and repenting.”

“Came home — my head aches — plenty of news, but too tiresome to set down. I have neither read, nor written, nor thought, but led a purely animal life all day. I mean to try to write a page or two before I go to bed. But, as Squire Sullen says, ‘My head aches consumedly: Scrub, bring me a dram!’ Drank some Imola wine, and some punch.”

“Read — rode — fired pistols — returned — dined — wrote — visited — heard music — talked nonsense — and went home. Wrote part of a Tragedy — advance in Act 1st with ‘all deliberate speed.’ Bought a blanket.“

“The only pleasure of fame is that it paves the way to pleasure; and the more intellectual our pleasure, the better for the pleasure and for us too.”

“I flew into a paroxysm of rage, which almost made me faint. I have not been well ever since. I deserve it for being such a fool.”

“Lewis [..] seems out of humour with every thing. What can be the matter? he is not married — has he lost his own mistress, or any other person’s wife?”

“Scrawled this additional page of life’s log-book. One day more is over of it, and of me; — but ‘which is best, life or death, the gods only know,’ as Socrates said to his judges, on the breaking up of the tribunal.”

“The respectable Job says, ‘Why should a living man complain?’ I really don’t know, except it be that a dead man can’t; and he, the said patriarch, did complain, nevertheless, till his friends were tired and his wife recommended that pious prologue, ‘Curse — and die;’ the only time, I suppose, when but little relief is to be found in swearing.”

“The lapse of ages changes all things — time — language — the earth — the bounds of the sea — the stars of the sky, and every thing ‘about, around, and underneath’ man, except man himself, who has always been, and always will be, an unlucky rascal. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence.”

“At five-and-twenty, when the better part of life is over, one should be something; — and what am I? nothing but five-and-twenty — and the odd months. What have I seen? the same man all over the world — ay, and woman too.”

[talking about his experience at a circus] “There was a ‘hippopotamus,’ like Lord Liverpool in the face; and the ‘Ursine Sloth’ had the very voice and manner of my valet.”

[after seeing Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra] “Cleopatra strikes me as the epitome of her sex — fond, lively, sad, tender, teasing, humble, haughty, beautiful, the devil! — coquettish to the last, as well with the ‘asp’ as with Antony.”

[on German] “Of the real language I know absolutely nothing, — except oaths learnt from postilions and officers in a squabble. I can swear in German potently, when I like — ‘Sacrament — Verfluchter — Hundsfott’ — and so forth; but I have little of their less energetic conversation. I like, however, their women (I was once so desperately in love with a German woman, Constance).”

“Dined — news come — the Powers mean to war with the peoples. The intelligence seems positive — let it be so — they will be beaten in the end. The king-times are fast finishing. There will be blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.”

“Why, at the very height of desire and human pleasure, — worldly, social, amorous, ambitious, or even avaricious, — does there mingle a certain sense of doubt and sorrow — a fear of what is to come — a doubt of what is — a retrospect to the past, leading to a prognostication of the future. (The best of Prophets of the future is the Past.) Why is this? or these? — I know not, except that on a pinnacle we are most susceptible of giddiness, and that we never fear falling except from a precipice — the higher, the more awful, and the more sublime; and, therefore, I am not sure that Fear is not a pleasurable sensation; at least, Hope is; and what Hope is there without a deep leaven of Fear? and what sensation is so delightful as Hope? and, if it were not for Hope, where would the Future be? — in hell. It is useless to say where the Present is, for most of us know; and as for the Past, what predominates in memory? — Hope baffled. Ergo, in all human affairs, it is Hope — Hope — Hope.”

[written when he was a chief in the Carbonari mob during the (ultimately failed) Italian Revolution] “To-day I have had no communication with my Carbonari cronies; but, in the mean time, my lower apartments are full of their bayonets, fusils, cartridges, and what not. I suppose that they consider me as a depôt, to be sacrificed, in case of accidents. It is no great matter, supposing that Italy could be liberated, who or what is sacrificed. It is a grand object — the very poetry of politics. Only think — a free Italy!!!”

“I carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer’s Sappho, which she promises to read. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love was not the loftiest theme for true tragedy; and, having the advantage of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my fewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love into ‘Sardanapalus’ than I intended.”

“Wrote some more of the tragedy. Took a glass of grog. After having ridden hard in rainy weather, and scribbled, and scribbled again, the spirits (at least mine) need a little exhilaration, and I don’t like laudanum now as I used to do. So I have mixed a glass of strong waters and single waters, which I shall now proceed to empty. Therefore and thereunto I conclude this day’s diary.”

“I have been turning over different Lives of the Poets. I rarely read their works, unless an occasional flight over the classical ones, Pope, Dryden, Johnson, Gray, and those who approach them nearest (I leave the rant of the rest to the cant of the day), and — I had made several reflections, but I feel sleepy, and may as well go to bed.”

#(dj khaled voice) another one! #lord byron #literature #diaries #writing #regency era #georgian era #byron #byronic #poet #poetry #philosophies #english literature #scottish literature #19th century #early 19th century #1800s #dark academia #aesthetic #diary #romanticism #romantic poets #romantic authors

[quotation--marks]

Among the vocal performers I had the happiness to hear the celebrated Mrs. —, whose voice was so loud and so shrill, that it made my head ake through excess of pleasure. 

Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

#the expedition of humphry clinker #tobias smollett #1771 #1770s #18th century #scottish literature #queue pierce my soul

[gennsoup]

Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder.

J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

#J. M. Barrie #Peter Pan #stars #star quotes #punishment #star language #British literature #Scottish literature #children's literature #fantasy #fantasy literature #quotes #quotes blog #literary quotes #literature quotes #literature #book quotes

[outstanding-quotes]

When compared with too little, enough’s always too much.

Len Pennie, from “Too Much” in Poyums

#len pennie #too much #poyums #buy the book! :) #poetry #Scottish literature #quote #literature #lit #self acceptance #judgment

[cinematic-literature]

Corsage (2022) by Marie Kreutzer

Book title: The Light Princess (1864) by George MacDonald

#scottish literature #george macdonald #the light princess #corsage #marie kreutzer #books in movies

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

#short story collection #short story collections #the wise woman and other stories #george macdonald #19th century literature #scottish literature #english language literature #book polls #have you read this short fiction? #completed polls

[mask131]

A fantasy read-list: B-1

Part B: The First Classical Fantasy

1) On one side, the British Isles... 

We looked at the most ancient roots of the fantasy genre, which are... well, literaly antique roots - the texts of the Antiquity, the myths and mythologies of the world, the legends of the so-called “pagans” and the tales of long-gone societies, cultures and civilizations. Plus the true, literal “medieval fantasy” and some Arthuriana sprinkled at the top. Now I want to explore the Renaissance fantasy - or rather the first wave and apparition in literature of true “proto-fantasy”. These classical works that are still heavy influences and inspirations on modern fantasy pieces, but are younger than all the mythological and medieval stuff. 

Given this huge read-list promises to be very big, very long and span over several years, I will try to restrain myself here to two nation-tied phenomenon. And in this specific post I will look at a given wave of “classical proto-fantasy” in the British Isles... Beginning with none other than...

# Shakespeare. William Shakespeare, the Bard of Avalon, the greatest playwright of England and a man whose work shaped our common imagination and popular culture today. Of course, since this list is focused about the wide genre of fantasy, I must start by listing his more openly supernatural and fantastical plays. On one side you have a lighter, more colorful and whimsical world of wonders and magic, in the shape of supernatural comedies, be it A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its now world-known depiction of the fairy court as the Titania-Oberon-Puck triangle, or The Tempest, which implanted archetypal figures such as Prospero the wizard, Ariel the aerial spirit or the monstrous Caliban. On the darker side of fantasy, you have the grim and nightmarish tragedies that are Hamlet, one of the most famous cases of royal hauntings and madness in the history of theater, or Macbeth, which changed forever the way people view witches throught its iconic trio of Weird Sisters. 

But the beautiful thing with Shakespeare is that even in his more “mundane” and “realistic” works, the magic never truly goes away. Thanks to his poetic writing and his love of symbolism and mysticism, Shakespeare maintains throughout his work a fantastical ambiance, an ambiguous tone that opens the door for many oniric sequences or supernatural readings. The description of Mab, queen of fairies, in Romeo and Juliet was just as influential on fairy folklore as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The abnormal storm and pagan madness of King Lear leaves one wondering about the true cosmic powers at work here. And even in historical works witchcraft is never far away - such as with Richard III, where devilish forces and hellish characters are at play in an well-recorded historical event... 

# But beyond Shakespeare, or rather all around him, there was a constellation of other poets and playwrights who helped conceive, flesh out and develop this “wonder-wave” that swept across Elizabethan England. Take Shakespeare’s most famous rival for example, Christopher Marlowe, who wrote The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, the first ever adaptation of the Faust legend for the stage. You have Edmund Spenser and his mystical fay epic, The Faerie Queene, which influenced not just Shakespeare but many more authors of knight adventures and fairy works. I can also mention Michael Drayton’s Nimphidia, The Court of Fairy (or Nymphidia depending on how you write it), a poem drawing from Shakespeare’s fairy characters to depict all the affairs, treacheries and secrets at the otherworld’s court ; or the various Elizabethan retellings of Ovid’s Metamorphosis written by John Lily (Endymion, Midas, Galathea...). 

# And of course, I have to point out here that beyond specific authors, Shakespeare’s fantastical works drew from a lot of various sources, all representing different fragments or aspects of the way people approached the supernatural, folklore and legends in their time. For example, the more Jacobean play The Witch by Thomas Middleton, which had elements reused for Macbeth ; or the Daemonologie of King James, which also influenced Shakespeare’s writing of demons and witches. I can also drop here names going from quite obscure today, such as The Spanish Tragedy of Thomas Kyd, to behemoths of culture, like Dante’s Divine Comedy. 

# Speaking of a man of the Isles who explored and influenced the fairy literature... I have to mention Robert Kirk, and his treatise on fairies and ghost known as The Secret Commonwealth. To this day, Kirk is still considered one of the greatest folklorists and collector of supernatural tale and fairy/ghost/witch beliefs of the 17th century, and The Secret Commonwealth stays one of the major “fairy books”. 

# Leaving a bit the topic of fairies, I will conclude this post with one name... Ossian. During the 18th century, James Macpherson discovered and translated ancient Gaelic texts of Scotland - a series of epic poems attributed to a legendary bard by the name of Ossian. He started by translating Fingal, An Epic Poem in Six Books, and then worked on Temora, An Ancient Epic Poem, before collecting it all as The Works of Ossian. This discovery and translated was a HUGE phenomenon, and a revolution in the world of culture. Up until that point, people had praised the Homeric epics and thought the “Homeric phenomenon” was a one-time thing that couldn’t have happened anywhere else but Ancient Greece... And yet here were these great, glorious, excellently done, epic poems of mythical heroes and ancient witchcraft and gods, attributed to a mythical god-inspired bard and poet, part of another form of Antiquity than the Greco-Roman one. People jubilated upon discovering the “Celtic Homer”, and praised these grea poems proving that the Greek epics could be challenged by Gaelic sagas... 

... But the thing is that James Macpherson probably never translated those works, and that maybe Ossian was a purely fictional invention. You see, James Macpherson was a poet himself with not much success before “discovering” the works of Ossian, and he was deeply passionate about ancient Scottish poetry and Celtic texts and the like, collecting them and imitating them. Despite their enormous importance and influence for literary movements, and painters across Europe, and poets for centuries to come, the poems of Ossian are clearly artificial in nature, written by Macpherson alone without any “translation” required. The poet purposefully created a “Celtic Homer”, as a way to sell his work - and selling it did! Mind you, the Ossian poems stay true to the texts and essence of ancient Celtic legends and myths. Macpherson knew his sources, as I said was passionate about ancient Gaelic poetry, and he took inspiration and influence from works such as the Ulster cycle, the Fenian cycle, the Book of the Dun Cow, the Book of Lismore or The Yellow Book of Lecan... The very fictional character of Ossian was actually shaped after the mythological character of Oisin. But Ossian and his poems stay an artificial creation of an 18th century poet, even though they fit perfectly alongside antique Celtic texts. It is similar to how nowadays Titania is an integral part of fairy folklore, and yet she was a literary inventon of Shakespeare for one of his plays. 

#fantasy #fantasy read-list #fantasy reading list #shakespeare #british literature #scottish literature #ossian #fairy folklore #fairies #william shakespeare #james macpherson #robert kirk #shakespeare plays #fairy poetry #fairy literature

[beatriceaware]

Review: Self-Control (1811)

“So true it is, that concealment is the bane of friendship.”

Synopsis: When Laura Montreville’s suitor (who, unbeknownst to her, has no intention of marrying her) attempts to seduce her, her horrified reaction and refusal of his advances leads to his full-on obsession with her, as she struggles to remain true to her morals and character while escaping his increasingly oppressive attentions.

Published in 1811, Self-Control, by Scottish novelist Mary Brunton (1778-1818), is a novel full of unlikely occurrences, strong expressions of faith, and served as a rebuttal to the romantic idea of the time that reformed rakes made the best husbands. It was successful upon release, so much so that Jane Austen wrote to her sister of having difficulty in obtaining a copy.

While the book certainly has merits, it also has enough detractors to discourage modern audiences, though most of those detractors were also criticisms leveled at the book upon its release, for the circumstances and situations within it do grow more and more unlikely and melodramatic as the story progresses. At the same time, the story is scattered with examples of well-written lines and genuinely good insights into human character. It also gives an unexpectedly sympathetic view of a family whose lives have been affected by sexual assault, and when we are often told about how women were always treated by society at large more as objects and property in previous eras, seeing evidence in that era’s novels that there was still a large population of people who condemned that behavior is a refreshing view. Not that there are not attitudes within the story that many of us might find hard to take, but the novel treats its characters as realized people regardless of gender, and its heroes are always respectful of women, while the lack of it it is a clear and obvious flaw of its villains. 

(In fact, the behavior of the book’s ultimate hero holds up better than many a man in a modern romcom, for Montague de Courcy does not press his attentions or even tell Laura of them while her situation would make a refusal of him uncomfortable due to constant contact; and then when he is refused, he is true to his word and doesn’t make Laura feel bad about rejecting him or try to manipulate friendship into making her fall in love with him.)

From a social perspective, Laura’s precarious situation is exacerbated by being a young woman with no protector, no wealth, and no advantage of a high position in society. That being said, her trials do linger on in a way that becomes, quite frankly, tiresome (and increasingly more unbelievable, as her aunt's dogged pressure for her to marry our villain Hargrave even in the face of worse and worse evidence of his depravity, for example, begins to feel more like plot armor than convincing motive) until they finally conclude in a most unlikely manner.

(SPOILER ALERT: that manner being that Colonel Hargrave, hires someone to kidnap Laura and bring her to America where he plans to rape her and force her to marry him; she escapes by faking her death in the rapids in a canoe before sailing home END OF SPOILER)

In truth, the faults of this novel are especially disappointing because there are so many glimmers of promise within the pages; had it committed to a more realistic plot without falling into pits of melodrama, it could have, I believe, better withstood the tests of time.

My personal favorite parts of the novel were when the author would drag her own characters in the most delightfully insulting way- Mrs. Brunton seemed to have a particular displeasure for bad and incompetent mothers, and described Laura’s in particular as having a heart that was a “mere pulsation of the left side.” Perhaps I also loved these moments because it’s proof that people never really change, and I can tell you I’ve certainly known modern versions of the sorts described below:

“Having no character of her own, Julia was always, as nearly as she was able, the heroine whom the last read novel inclined her to impersonate. But as those who forsake the guidance of nature are in imminent danger of absurdity, her copies were always caricatures.” 

or:

“Colonel Hargrave had been the spoiled child of a weak mother, and he continued to retain one characteristic of spoiled children: some powerful stimulant was with him a necessary of life. He despised all pleasures of regular occurrence and moderate degree; and even looked down upon those who could be satisfied with such enjoyments, as on beings confined to a meaner mode of existence.” 

and finally:

Lady Pelham could amuse–could delight; she said many wise, and many brilliant things; but her wisdom was not always well-timed, and her brilliant things were soap-bubbles in the sun, sparkling and highly colored, but vanishing at the touch of him who would examine their structure.

One last, notable thing about Self-Control: we have Jane Austen’s surviving opinion of it. In 1813 she wrote, "I am looking over Self Control again, and my opinion is confirmed of its being an excellently-meant, elegantly-written work, without anything of nature or probability in it.” Truth be told, I think Miss Austen pretty much had the right of it, and her opinion stands just as well today as it did then.

#book reviews #classic novels #Self-Control #Mary-Brunton #Scottish Literature #British Literature #Regency Era #19th century fiction

[gutter--trash]

happy burns night to jean armour, and jean armour only

I hope she’s haunting the shit out of her husband in the afterlife

#WHERE IS MY HIGH BUDGET PERIOD DRAMA ABOUT ROBERT BURNS #Robert burns #burns night #portrait #historical figures #also this one’s for the scots #here you go scots #it’s me im scots #no one asked for this #scottish literature #my art #no thoughts head empty

[sophiaphile]

"She said, 'Have you married again?'

'No.'

She frowned and said, 'Why not? You're the sort of man who needs a wife. You would be very good to her if she was ordinary enough.'

This remark confused me. I said, 'Are you married?'

'Oh no, I'm not the marrying type. I stayed with you for such a long time because I thought you needed me. Of course I was a bit of a coward in those days, terribly conventional.'

Her bus arrived and she went away on it leaving me utterly confused. During our marriage I thought I only stayed with her because she needed me. And I too was a coward, and conventional. It took ten years together, and as many separate, to discover that Helen and I felt exactly the same way toward each other and what good did it do? What good did it do? What good did it do?"

—Alasdair Gray, 1982 Janine

#alasdair gray #1982 janine #scottish literature #marriage #grief #personal