Older Scots Literature

Written by leading scholars in the subject, this three-part collection features essays on medieval and Renaissance Scotland's principal writers, including Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Alexander Montgomerie. It also provides discussions of a wide range of types of writing, in poetry and prose, from the ballad and the personal letter to Scotland's extraordinary tradition of 'eldritch' (supernatural or 'spooky') verse. Women's writing and gender issues are examined in several essays dealing with the sixteenth century. These contributions are supported by important contextualising essays on manuscript and print culture, and by linguistic, stylistic and metrical analyses of key texts from these periods, such as Hary's Wallace and the Gude and Godlie Ballatis. This volume constitutes a rich combination of original research and scholarly reassessment into the literature of the Scottish nation's most creative era. Contributors include Priscilla Bawcutt, Sarah M. Dunnigan, William Gillies, R.J. Lyall, and A.A. MacDonald. Each part is introduced by a substantial essay by the editor.