Also by Eleanor Bell. SCOTLAND IN THEORY: Reflections on Culture and Literature (with Gavin Miller, eds)

Questioning Scotland

Also by Eleanor Bell SCOTLAND IN THEORY: Reflections on Culture and Literature (with Gavin Miller, eds)

Questioning Scotland Literature, Nationalism, Postmodernism Eleanor Bell P3IQ? 3V6

* Eleanor Bell 2004 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-1331-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WlT 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PAlGRAVE MACMillAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-51183-9 DOl 10.1057/9780230508248 ISBN 978-0-230-50824-8 (ebook) This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Bell, Eleanor, 1973- Questioning Scotland : literature, nationalism, postmodernism I Eleanor Bell. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 1. Scottish literature-history and criticism-theory, etc. 2. Nationalism and literature- Scotland. 3. Postmodernism (Literature) -Scotland. 4. Literature and history-scotland. 5. Scotland-Intellectual life. 6. Nationalism-Scotland. 7. Criticism-Scotland. I. Title. PR8S18.845 2004 820.9'9411 '0904-dc22 2004053034 10 13 9 12 8 11 7 6 5 4 3 10 09 08 07 06 2 1 OS 04

In memory of Elizabeth Stewart Bell

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Contents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations ix x Introduction 1 1 Tracing Predicaments: Modernism to Postmodernism 7 From the Kailyard to the Scottish Literary Renaissance 12 Modernist Predicaments: MacDiarmid and Muir 15 Women, Misrepresentation and the Renaissance Period 22 Postmodern Predicaments 28 2 (Multi)National Identity: Old and New Histories 47 Late National Imaginings 52 Tom Nairn: Nationalism, Neurosis and the Pathological 58 Faces of Nationalism and Further Contradictions 62 After Britain and the Return of Scotland 67 Beveridge and Turnbull: Postmodernism vs. Cultural Nationalism 70 Cairns Craig: Out of History and the Question of Tradition 80 The Modern Scottish Novel: Reclaiming the National Imagination 86 National Imaginations: Old and New Histories 90 3 Postmodern States: Re-thinking the Nation 95 Apocalyptic Re-thinkings: Alasdair Gray 100 Scotland Rematerialised: The Poetry of Edwin Morgan 111 Postmodern States and Ethical Beyondness 120 4 Ethics of Deterritorialisation 125 Community, Cosmopolitanism and the Ethics of Place 131 Postnationalism, Ethics and Deterritorialisation 136 vn

viii Contents Conclusion 141 Scottish Postcolonialism and Cultural Difference 142 Irish Studies: Revisionism, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism 145 Notes 151 Bibliography 182 Index 193

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Carcanet Press Limited for their permission to reprint extracts from Edwin Morgan's Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 1996). Special thanks to Alex Young and John Bell for their love and support throughout the preparation of this book. IX

List of Abbreviations A Hugh MacDiarmid, Albyn; or, Scotland and the Future (London: Kegan Paul, 1927) AB Tom Nairn, After Britain (London: Granta, 2000) BN Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage Publications, 1995) EMUSC Andrew Noble (ed.) Edwin Muir: Uncollected Scottish Criticism (London: Vision Press, 1982) ESC Craig Beveridge and Ronald Turnbull, The Eclipse of Scottish Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1989) FoN Tom Nairn, Faces of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1998) G Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences (Oxford: Polity Press, 1998) GUW Beat Witschi, Glasgow Urban Writing and Postmodernism: A Study of Alasdair Grays Fiction (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1989) HMSR Duncan Glen, Hugh MacDiarmid and the Scottish Renaissance (London: W. & R. Chambers Ltd, 1964) IC Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983) IS Willa Muir, Imagined Selves (ed.) Kirsty Allen (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1996) ISP Zygmunt Bauman, In Search of Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999) L Alasdair Gray, Lanark (London: Picador, 1994) NN Homi K. Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990) OD Catherine Carswell, Open the Door! (London: Virago, 1986) OOH Cairns Craig, Out of History: Narrative Paradigms in Scottish and British Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1996) PE Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993) PI Richard Kearney, Postnationalist Ireland: Politics, Culture, Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1997) SAE Craig Beveridge and Ronald Turnbull, Scotland after Enlightenment (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1997) SoC Benedict Anderson, Spectres of Comparison: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London: Verso, 1998) x

Abbreviations xi SoE SNSTS SS T TBU TLS TMSN TSN US Geoffrey Gait Harpham, Shadows of Ethics: Criticism and the Just Society (London and Durham: Duke University Press, 1999) Gavin Wallace and Randall Stevenson (eds), The Scottish Novel since the Seventies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993) Edwin Muir, Scott and Scotland: The Predicament of the Scottish Writer (London: George Routledge and Sons Ltd, 1936) Richard Kearney, Transitions: Narratives of Modern Irish Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988) Tom Nairn, The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo- Nationalism (London: NLB, 1977) Edna Longley, The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1994) Cairns Craig, The Modern Scottish Novel: Narrative and the National Imagination (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999) Francis Russell Hart, The Scottish Novel: A Critical Survey (London: John Murray, 1978) David McCrone, Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Stateless Nation (London: Routledge, 1992)