Edinburgh Companion To Liz Lochhead

Explores the significance of Liz Lochhead's work for the twenty-first century.The first contemporary critical investigation since Liz Lochhead's appointment as Scotland's second Scots Makar, this Companion examines her poetry, theatre, visual and performing arts, and broadcast media. It also discusses her theatre for children and young people, her translations for the stage as well as translations of her texts into foreign languages and cultures.Several poets offer commentaries on the influence of Liz Lochhead on their own practice while academic critics from America, Europe, England and Scotland offer new critical readings inspired by feminism, post-colonialism and cultural history. The volume addresses all of Lochhead's major outputs, from new appraisal of early work such as Dreaming Frankenstein and Blood and Ice to evaluations of her more recent works and collections such as The Colour of Black and White and Perfect Days.

Combines historical rigour with an analysis of dramatic contexts, themes and formsThe 17 contributors explore the longstanding and vibrant Scottish dramatic tradition and the important developments in Scottish dramatic writing and theatre, with particular attention to the last 100 years.The first part of the volume covers Scottish drama from the earliest records to the late twentieth-century literary revival, as well as translation in Scottish theatre and non-theatrical drama. The second part focuses on the work of influential Scottish playwrights, from J. M. Barrie and James Bridie to Ena Lamont Stewart, Liz Lochhead and Edwin Morgan and right up to contemporary playwrights Anthony Neilson, Gregory Burke, Henry Adams and Douglas Maxwell.

By combining historical spread with a thematic structure, this volume explores the ways in which gender has shaped literary output and addresses the changing situations in which Scottish women lived and wrote.

James Hogg (1770-1835) is increasingly recognised as a major Scottish author and one of the most original figures in European Romanticism. 16 essays written by international experts on Hogg draw on recent breakthroughs in research to illuminate the contexts and debates that helped to shape his writings. The book provides an indispensable guide to Hogg's life and worlds, his publishing history, reception and reputation, his treatments of politics, religion, nationality, social class, sexuality and gender, and the diverse literary forms - ballads, songs, poems, drama, short stories, novels, periodicals - in which he wrote.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is widely recognised as one of the central and defining figures in Scottish literature and in European and American Romanticism. Fabled in his own lifetime as 'the Wizard of the North' and as the (long-anonymous) 'Author of Waverley', he played a unique role in the dissemination of an idea of Scottish culture and history. From his early work as a collector and editor of traditional ballads to the widespread popularity and fame of his poetry and novels, and to his important writings on history, economics, folklore, and literature, Scott refashioned the literary culture of his day and continues to shape our own.The Edinburgh Companion to Sir Walter Scott, the first collection of its kind devoted to his work, draws on the innovative research and scholarship which have revitalised the study of the whole range of his exceptionally diverse writing in recent years. Chapters written by leading international scholars provide an indispensable guide to his work in different genres and reflect the topics and concerns which are most exciting in Scott scholarship today, including his place in literary and popular culture, his experimentation and originality, his relationship to Romanticism, and the revaluation of lesser-known works.

This collection of essays explores the historical importance and imaginative richness of Scotland's extensive contribution to modes of traditional culture and expression: ballads, tales and storytelling, and song. Its underlying aim is to bring about a more dynamic and inclusive understanding of Scottish culture. Rooted in literary history and both comparative and interdisciplinary in scope, the volume covers the key aspects and genres of traditional literature, including the Gaelic tradition, from the medieval period to the present. Key theoretical and conceptual issues raised by the historical analysis of Scotland's rich store of ballad, song, and folk narrative are discussed in separate chapters. The volume also explores why and how Scottish literary writers have been inspired by traditional genres, modes, and motifs, and the intermingling of folk and literary traditions in writers such as Burns, Scott, and Hogg. It also uncovers the folkloric and mythopoetic materials of early Scottish literature, and the vitality of neglected aspects of Scottish popular culture.

The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Literature examines the ways in which the cultural and political role of Scottish writing has changed since the country's successful referendum on national self-rule in 1997. In doing so, it makes a convincing case for a distinctive post-devolution Scottish criticism. Introducing over forty original essays under four main headings - 'Contexts', 'Genres', 'Authors' and 'Topics' - the volume covers the entire spectrum of current interests and topical concerns in the field of Scottish studies and heralds a new era in Scottish writing, literary criticism and cultural theory. It records and critically outlines prominent literary trends and developments, the specific political circumstances and aesthetic agendas that propel them, as well as literature's capacity for envisioning new and alternative futures. Issues under discussion include class, sexuality and gender, nationhood and globalisation, the New Europe and cosmopolitan citizenship, postcoloniality,

The last three decades have seen unprecedented flourishing of creativity across the Scottish literary landscape, so that contemporary Scottish poetry constitutes an internationally renowned, award-winning body of work. At the heart of this has been the work of poets. As this poetry makes space for its own innovative concerns, it renegotiates the poetic inheritance of preceding generations. At the same time, Scottish poetry continues to be animated by writing from other places. The Edinburgh Companion to Contemporary Scottish Poetry is the definitive guide to this flourishing poetic scene. Its chapters examine Scottish poetry in all three of the nation's languages. It analyses many thematic preoccupations: tradition and innovation; revolutions in gender; the importance of place; the aesthetic politics of devolution. These chapters are complemented by extended close readings of the work of key poets that have defined this era, including Edwin Morgan, Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson, Aonghas MacNeacail and John Burnside.