English 491B: Seminars in English and American Literature: Scottish Romanticism

The Romantic Era is now best known for the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. Yet there were many different literary movements in the period. Recent scholarship has identified Scottish Romanticism as a crucial and influential force in the period, one that included a variety of genres. This course will examine the key writers who contributed to Scottish Romanticism. Following the Union of the (English and Scottish) Crowns in 1603 and the Act of Union in 1707, in which Scotland lost its parliament, many Scots felt their nation to be marginalized and powerless.We will examine the strategies and tactics used by the Scottish authors to culturally represent and empower their nation, from the use of dialect, mythology and folklore to the creation of new literary genres and the reformation of old ones. Writers may include: James Macpherson, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, James Hogg, Anne Grant, Joanna Baillie, Susan Ferrier, and Elizabeth Hamilton.