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Buntin, Melanie Clare (2015) the Mutual Gaze: the Location(S) of Allan Ramsay and James Thomson Within an Emerging Eighteenth-Century British Literature

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Buntin, Melanie Clare (2015) the Mutual Gaze: the Location(S) of Allan Ramsay and James Thomson Within an Emerging Eighteenth-Century British Literature Buntin, Melanie Clare (2015) The mutual gaze: the location(s) of Allan Ramsay and James Thomson within an emerging eighteenth-century British literature. PhD thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/6461/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Mutual Gaze: the Location(s) of Allan Ramsay and James Thomson within an Emerging Eighteenth-Century British Literature. Melanie Clare Buntin Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Scottish Literature School of Critical Studies University of Glasgow Dedicated to the memory of Carolyn Halcrow 1969-2011 ii Abstract The primary aim of this thesis is to bring Allan Ramsay (1684-1748) and James Thomson (1700-1748) into close critical contact for the first time and, in so doing, deconstruct the paradigm of opposition which has previously attached to these two contemporaries. The thesis posits that the separation of Ramsay and Thomson has been effected, retrospectively, by the twentieth-century Scottish critical tradition. The narrow, cultural essentialism exhibited by this body of scholarship has been effectively challenged in recent decades by the work of Gerard Carruthers, and revisionary ‘Four Nations’ approaches to late eighteenth-century British literature have done much to reinstate the importance of what were previously viewed as marginal or peripheral literary locations. Ramsay and Thomson, however, have never been fully united in literary and cultural terms. This thesis demonstrates that Ramsay and Thomson shared, not only a chronological context, but also a creative context informed by a reciprocal engagement with the work of the other and posits that the relationship between these two lowland Scottish writers can be conceived of in terms of a sustained mutual gaze. James Thomson remains entrenched within an English literary canon, despite the efforts of Mary Jane Scott to reclaim him for his native country. Conversely, Allan Ramsay remains firmly rooted in his native Scottish soil as the father of the vernacular revival and the epitome of literary and cultural resistance to a supposed English cultural hegemony in the wake of the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England. It is true that Ramsay’s and Thomson’s creative trajectories exemplify the literary choices and cultural paths available to a Scottish writer in the years immediately following the Union of Parliaments, but to set them in creative opposition as a result of these choices is a critical commonplace which this thesis challenges. Thomson spent the greater part of his literary career in and around London, whilst Ramsay remained in Edinburgh until his death; clearly the corpora of these two writers were conditioned by the locations of their production. Hence, the thematic structure of this thesis relies on the notion of location, both physical and literary. The first two chapters of this thesis, ‘Edinburgh’ and ‘London’, illustrate the urban contexts of both writers; in so doing they suggest that a mutual gaze was sustained, not only between Ramsay and Thomson, but that a similarly reciprocal relationship and network of influence existed between the literary and cultural centres of Edinburgh and London. The third chapter of this thesis, ‘Nation’, traces the fluid and nuanced literary responses to the concept of nation in a period when national and literary boundaries were in a state of flux. The fourth and iii final chapter of this thesis, ‘Land’, explores the shifting aesthetic landscape of the period and, with an emphasis on mode and genre, demonstrates Ramsay’s and Thomson’s original contribution to an emerging British poetic, elucidated by an extended analysis of their poetry of place. iv Contents: Abstract........................................................................................p.iii Acknowledgements......................................................................p.vii Introduction..................................................................................p.8 The Critical Locations of Allan Ramsay and James Thomson......p.8 Relocating Ramsay and Thomson..................................................p.20 Definitions and Scope.....................................................................p.23 A Note on Texts..............................................................................p.27 Chapter 1– Edinburgh...................................................................p.28 The Easy Club................................................................................p.34 Grotesques, Athenians and The Edinburgh Miscellany.................p.42 No ‘Merry Freedom’: Poets and Patrons.......................................p.53 Chapter 2– London.......................................................................p.66 Miscellaneous Identities.................................................................p.68 The Mutual Gaze and ‘The Morning Interview’............................p.76 Cultural Capitals: Scots and London..............................................p.86 ‘Winter’, Sympathy and the Scottish Sublime................................p.99 Chapter 3–Nation.........................................................................p.104 Performing the Nation....................................................................p.116 The Oak, the Plough and the ‘Waters Wild’..................................p.126 Chapter 4– Land..........................................................................p.140 The Aesthetic Landscape..............................................................p.141 The Moral and Modal Landscape of The Castle of Indolence......p.145 v Satirical and Elegiac Locations.........................................................p.155 Conclusion........................................................................................p.166 Index of Individual Works..............................................................p.170 Bibliography.....................................................................................p.172 vi Acknowledgements This work could not have been completed without the support of a number of people and organisations. Firstly, sincere gratitude is due to The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland for awarding me a generous scholarship. Thanks are due also to the British Association for Romantic Studies whose Stephen Copley Postgraduate Bursary enabled a fruitful research trip to the British Library. I have been lucky enough have had the support of two supervisors, Dr Rhona Brown and Professor Nigel Leask, whose patience, encouragement and scholarship has been an inspiration and an honour. Special thanks must go to Dr Brown for her unfailing patience and calm wisdom throughout what was, at times, a very fraught process. Further thanks are due to Professor Gerard Carruthers and Dr Kirsteen McCue whose insights, ideas and encouragement made annual progress reviews a very valuable part of the academic year. Finally, I owe a huge debt of gratitude and love to the people who mean the most. I want to thank my sister, Vickie, for support, succour and shelter throughout my time at the University of Glasgow. Her moral and practical support, particularly during the fraught, final stages of writing, was immeasurable; this is a debt which I can only repay by reiterating my appreciation, admiration and love and for such an excellent sibling. Lastly, thanks must go to Ali, who has suffered through every word and kept the home fires burning. vii Introduction THE CRITICAL LOCATIONS OF ALLAN RAMSAY (1684-1758) AND JAMES THOMSON (1700-1748) In a recent (and rare) anthology of eighteenth-century Scottish poetry, Christopher MacLachlan begins his introductory comments with the following justification: ‘It is necessary to begin by explaining why this anthology of eighteenth-century Scottish verse contains nothing by the greatest Scottish poet of the period, if not of all time, Robert Burns.’1 The reason for the deliberate omission is that, in MacLachlan’s metaphorically dazzling yet undeniably accurate rhetoric, Just as in a total eclipse of the sun the sky darkens so the lesser bodies whose light is usually lost in the solar glare become visible, so by a temporary and artificial occlusion of the star of Robert Burns may the lesser constellations of eighteenth- century Scottish poetry swim into our ken.2 There can be no doubt that Burns’s international poetic and cultural stature casts a long shadow over the earlier Scottish poets of the eighteenth century. Consequently, MacLachlan’s temporary eclipse of Robert Burns is both justifiable, and wholly welcome, to those whose interest in eighteenth-century Scottish poetry extends before and beyond the stellar career of Burns. However, the exclusion of Burns from this anthology is surely foregrounded by the title, Before Burns. Thus, on first reading the contents page of this anthology, the question should not be ‘Where’s Burns?’, but rather,
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