Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies National Cosmopolitanisms
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies Volume 6: Issue 1 National Cosmopolitanisms Aberdeen University Press JOURNAL OF IRISH AND SCOTTISH STUDIES Volume 6, Issue 1 Autumn 2012 National Cosmopolitanisms Published by Aberdeen University Press in association with The Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies ISSN 1753-2396 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies General Editor: Cairns Craig Issue Editors: Michael Brown and Sandra Hynes Editorial Advisory Board: Fran Brearton, Queen’s University, Belfast Eleanor Bell, University of Strathclyde Ewen Cameron, University of Edinburgh Sean Connolly, Queen’s University, Belfast Patrick Crotty, University of Aberdeen David Dickson, Trinity College, Dublin T. M. Devine, University of Edinburgh David Dumville, University of Aberdeen Aaron Kelly, University of Edinburgh Edna Longley, Queen’s University, Belfast Shane Alcobia-Murphy, University of Aberdeen Ian Campbell Ross, Trinity College, Dublin Graham Walker, Queen’s University, Belfast International Advisory Board: Don Akenson, Queen’s University, Kingston Tom Brooking, University of Otago Keith Dixon, Université Lumière Lyon 2 Marjorie Howes, Boston College H. Gustav Klaus, University of Rostock Peter Kuch, University of Otago Graeme Morton, University of Guelph Brad Patterson, Victoria University, Wellington Matthew Wickman, Brigham Young David Wilson, University of Toronto The Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies is a peer reviewed journal published twice yearly in autumn and spring by Aberdeen University Press in association with the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies. An electronic reviews section is available on the RIISS website at: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/issjournal.shtml Editorial correspondence, including manuscripts for submission, should be addressed to The Editors, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, Humanity Manse, 19 College Bounds, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3UG or emailed to: [email protected] Subscription information can be found on www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/publications Cover image: detail of Atkinson, ‘Frigate Off Cobh’ courtesy of Gorry Gallery www.gorrygallery.ie CONTENTS Editorial v Carlo Denina, ‘Mylady Mackenzie’ and the Enlightenment 1 Construction of Scottish and Irish Literature Ian Campbell Ross Thomas Wilson (1758 – 1824) of Dullatur, the Scottish Second 25 Husband of Matilda Tone: The Unravelling of a Mystery Jane Rendall and C. J. Woods Louis MacNeice’s Irish and Scottish Pasts, 1935 – 9 51 Paul Robichaud ‘The Cold Northern Land of Suomi’: Michael Davitt and 73 Finnish Nationalism Andrew G. Newby The Subscription Controversy of the 1820s, ‘a religious form 93 of imperialism’ and John Mitchel’s Early Influences Michael Huggins ‘What is my country?’: Supporting Small Nation Publishing 115 Alistair McCleery and Melanie Ramdarshan Bold New Cosmopolitanism, Democracy and the Place of Scottish 133 Studies Scott Lyall Notes on Contributors 155 EDITORIAL This issue of the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies speaks across a range of disciplines and centuries, comparatively and nationally, to address the question of cosmopolitanism. Irish-Scottish Studies is in many ways embedded in a specific national context, but chooses to inform that internal discussion through reference to a comparative case. Setting Ireland and Scotland side by side has helped shed light on such vexed questions as the economic modernisation of the two countries and the fate of the national literary revivals. The comparison still informs political debates about these matters – be it the economic crisis in Ireland or the independence question in Scotland. But the purpose and value of cosmopolitanism in scholarly discussion is not frequently placed at the heart of the discussion as it is here. A central theme in the essays collected here is the power of cosmopolitan perspectives and national comparisons in shaping agendas and articulating solutions. Thus while the essay by Ian Campbell Ross for instance constitutes an important contribution to the study of the development of English Literature, it also has an important international aspect. Since Robert Crawford’s Devolving English Literature (2000), attention has been given to the role of the Scots in shaping the literary canon taught in Universities from the late eighteenth century. Campbell Ross here opens up the possibility that the canon was a partial creation of an Italian commentator on the wider creative writing of the Celtic countries: at once a more intricate and cosmopolitan inheritance, but one which connects to Crawford’s study through the formative role of the Earl of Bute in fashioning a British cultural inheritance through adept patronage. The interconnectivity of Ireland and Scotland (and the defining context of France) again appears in the study of Matilda Tone supplied by Jane Rendall and Christopher Woods. In an inventive addition to the work of Elaine MacFarland (whose study Ireland and Scotland in the Age of Revolution (1994) remains central to our understanding of how radical movements in the two countries provided mutual support during the revolutionary age), the authors excavate the history of Tone’s Scottish second husband, Thomas Wilson. Breaking ground in the highly gendered history of this period of vi Editorial activism, the article also asserts, by its nature, the value of collaboration across the scholarly disciplines and national literatures: exemplifying what the Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies endeavours to promote. Domestic politics is also a concern in Michael Huggins’ exploration of the intellectual inheritance of John Mitchel, although religion not politics is the dominant theme. Huggins is however rightly careful not to make too much of the lineage he uncovers back to the writings of Francis Hutcheson – that foundational Ulster-Scottish philosopher – and the radical positioning of Mitchel. Supplying a corrective to the work of A. T. Q. Stewart (A Deeper Silence, 1995) which built a high road from New Light Presbyterianism to the United Irish Rebellion, Huggins here suggests a tangled pathway from the 1720s to the 1840s. In proposing that Mitchel was antagonistic to his father’s liberal theology, it also sets the question of Irish nationalism into that most nineteenth century of genres – the argument of father and son. This was in part shaped by the younger man’s awareness of developments in Europe and the United States – his attraction to the 1848 rebellions in the first case and his revulsion at the Great Awakening in the second. The sources of Irish political radicalism are again evident in Andrew Newby’s contribution, which uncovers a resonant place for Finland in the experience and understanding of Michael Davitt. For Davitt the capacity to visit Helsinki concretised the parallel he drew between Finland’s relationship to Russia and that of Ireland and Britain. In arguing this case Newby helpfully contributes to a rendering of Irish nationalism in a European context – one which sets it alongside the programme of the Young Italians and the dilemmas posed inside the Austro-Hungarian question. This broad contextual understanding also inflects Paul Robichaud’s treatment of Louis MacNeice, although here Iceland, not Finland, is the relevant parallel. While MacNeice sees Iceland as a haven of ‘communal life’ he is equally aware that ‘no European island, however remote, could provide even a temporary escape from the pressures of modernity and history.’ The economic pressures of modernity inform Alistair McCleery and Melanie Ramdarshan Bold’s overview of the conditions of publishing in Ireland and Scotland. As the transnational conglomerates centralise publication and web purchasing closes local outlets the need for small nations to protect and provide for cultural capital is increased. Educational systems provide one crucial buttress to this ambition as do the Arts Councils that exist in both Ireland and Scotland. However the efficacy of both of these protectionist structures is questioned here, particularly when the Irish and Scottish cases National Cosmopolitanisms vii are placed alongside the example of Canadian publishing which has been a significant beneficiary of the federal system of governance and national cultural ambition. If the economics of Irish and Scottish cultural expression look bleak, the final essay here, that of Scott Lyall provides a more optimistic gloss to the condition of Scottish Studies. Again cosmopolitanism is the crucial thematic, with Lyall identifying a fundamental tension between the internationalist ambitions of much literary criticism and the nationalist content of the country’s political culture. Arguing for a reassertion of the national context in the treatment of Scottish literature and a reconnection with the place of composition, Lyall sets himself against a trend to de-territorialise creative writing. As he polemically enquires ‘what if literary art is dying … because different – not discrete – national cultures and traditions are being worn away by globalisation?’ Michael Brown, University of Aberdeen Carlo Denina, ‘Mylady Mackenzie’ and the Enlightenment Construction of Scottish and Irish Literature Ian Campbell Ross The birth of Romanticism, for the most part in Germany, also coincides with the birth of the modern nation state, the modern university and … with the founding of Comparative Literature (vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft) as a discipline.