Medieval Scottish Literature

Title: The Impact of Latin Culture on Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing

Editors: Alessandra F. Petrina & Ian M. Johnson

In the late medieval and early modern periods, native tongues and traditions, including those of Scotland, cohabited and competed with latinitas in fascinating and inventive ways. Scottish latinity had its distinctive stamp, most intriguingly so in its effects upon the literary vernacular and on themes of national identity. The present book shows how, when viewed through the prism of its latinity, Scottish textuality was distinctive and fecund. The flowering of Scottish writing owed itself to a subtle combination of literary praxis, the ideal of eloquentia, and ideological deftness. This combination enabled writers to service a burgeoning national literary tradition, and to transcend the subject matter of nation through fruitful and energetic treatment of issues of universal appeal.

Table of Contents

Ian Johnson and Alessandra Petrina, Introduction: Scottish Latinitas


Part I: Re-writing the Classical and Medieval Legacy

Steven J. Reid, Classical Reception and Erotic Latin Poetry in Sixteenth-century Scotland: The Case of Thomas Maitland (ca. 1548-1572)

Kate Ash-Irisarri, Mnemonic Frameworks in The Buke of the Chess


Part II: Writing the Scottish Nation

Tommaso Leso, Defining Scottish Identity in the Early Middle Ages: Bede and the Picts

John Leeds, Universals, Particulars, and Political Discourse in John Mair’s Historia Maioris Britanniae

Elizabeth Hanna, A ‘Scottish Monmouth’? Hector Boece’s Arthurian Revisions

John Cramsie, Topography, Ethnography, and the Catholic Scots in the Religious Culture Wars: From Hector Boece’s Scotorum Historia to John Lesley’s Historie of Scotland

Alessandra Petrina, A View from Afar: Petruccio Ubaldini’s Descrittione del Regno di Scotia

Part III: The Vagaries of Languages and Texts

Ian Johnson, Reading Robert Henryson’s Orpheus and Eurydice: Sentence and Sensibility

Nick Havely, Seget’s Comedy: A Scots Scholar, Galileo, and a Dante Manuscript

Jeremy Smith, The Inventions of Sir Thomas Urquhart

Nicola Royan, Afterword

The introductory essay traces a constellation of critical theories, cultural contexts, and modes of reading medieval literature to situate this collection of essays within a cross disciplinary critical landscape. Central to this discussion are the interconnected thematic concepts guiding this collected volume, namely the construction and performance of ‘voice’ as a gendered act. In this respect, the idea of ‘female voice’ is developed not as a monolithic, binary concept, but rather as a nuanced and malleable amalgamation of a range of cultural, literary, and structural factors. Finally, the presentation of essays on texts in Middle High German, modern German, Latin, French, and Older Scots is presented as a valuable project in reading medieval literature within a transcultural textual network.