Durham E-Theses The major novels of Lewis Grassic Gibbon Fothergill, Gillian How to cite: Fothergill, Gillian (1980) The major novels of Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/7949/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk GILLIAN FOTHERGILL THE MAJOR NOVELS OF LEWIS GRASSIC GIBBON ABSTRACT James Leslie Mitchell is better remembered as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, the author of the trilogy A Scots Quair. Mitchell regarded himself as a communicator rather than an artist. His trilogy and the novels published under his own name all reflect his concern for moral and political issues and his passionate interest in the implications of Diffusionism. A Scots Quair is undoubtedly his finest achievement. Apart from his success in creating a new, sophisticated written Scots, it is superior to his other novels in that the ideas do not dominate the structure. Set in Mitchell's native area. North-eastern Scotland, the towns and villages of the Mearns become the focus for the author's analysis of both Scottish problems and the complexities of industrial life in the Depression. 1 In this thesis I concentrate on A Scots Quair and refer to his other work only as a necessary context. The first chapter is about his life, his intellectual development and his work apart from the trilogy. In the second chapter I discuss Sunset Song, and the third and fourth chapters deal with the middle and last books of the trilogy respectively. The final chapter contains an appraisal of criticism of the trilogy. I approach the trilogy primarily through close analysis of the text because too many critics have assessed the second and third books solely within the terms of reference established in Sunset Song. A close textual analysis discloses the special 'integrities' of each novel. The separate life and literature of Scotland raise problems for the critic. Should 'English' critical norms be automatically applied to Scottish literature? Approaching the trilogy primarily through its language, I initiate a dualistic appreciation, suggesting that a work can simul• taneously be a flawed 'English' novel and a successful 'Scottish' one. THE MAJOR NOVELS OF LEWIS GRASS! C GIBBON GILLIAN MARY FOTHERGILL Thesis submitted for the degree of M.A. University of Durham Department of English 1980 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 14. MAY 1984 CONTENTS Page No. Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Life and Intellectual Background of James Leslie Mitchell 7 Chapter 2 Sunset Song 43 Chapter 3 Cloud Howe 73 Chapter 4 Grey Granite 102 Chapter 5 Critical Responses to A Scots Quair 133 Bibliography 151 I, the undersigned, do hereby declare that none of the material contained in this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree in this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without her prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are several people I would like to thank for their assistance. The late Mrs Ray Mitchell was very kind and very generous with her time. As well as recalling conversa• tions and incidents from the past, she made available to me all Leslie Mitchell's books and papers. Thanks are due too, to the staff of Hereford City Library. I am also grateful to Mrs Zena Matthews. Above all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Peter Lewis, for his patience, help and friendship. INTRODUCTION James Leslie Mitchell was already a successful author when in 1932 he published Sunset Song under the pseudonym of Lewis Grasslc Gibbon. Although the ostensible reason for the pseudonym was to avoid confusing readers of novels published under his own name, this new novel differed radically from his earlier work, and was to be the first part of a specifically Scots trilogy. This was completed with the publication of Cloud Howe in 1933 and Grey Granite in 1934, although it was not to be published in the single volume form entitled A Scots Quair until 1946. It is common critical practice to refer to these as the 'Scottish' novels and to all the others as the 'English' ones. It is on the Scottish novels that Mitchell's fame rests. With the exception of Spartacus (first published in 1933; re• published by Hutchinson in 1970), his English novels have been out of print for years and, although Spartacus is the exception here too, they have been largely dismissed by critics. Douglas Young makes a valiant attempt to rescue them from obscurity in his study of Mitchell's work, suggesting that the English novels reflect the mind of the writer.as clearly as the Scottish ones: I believe that his work can and should be seen as a whole. All of his writings, with a very few minor exceptions, are reflections of certain central ideas which he held about the nature and the history of man. If one gets these - 1 - ideas clear in one's mind, then one sees that the non-fiction works are all related, for they are all attempts to propagate, more or less directly, the same view of man and his destiny. Further, the fiction becomes more meaningful if it is seen as the expression of this vision of man.''" In this study, Young is attempting to demonstrate that the philosophy of Diffusionism formed the backbone of Mitchell's writing. Although his criticism of the trilogy is limited by this approach, he does make a valid case for a reappraisal of the English novels and for a criticism of A Scots Quair based on its relation to the larger unity of Mitchell's thought. The concern of this thesis, however, is not with the writer, but with his work. Although both English and Scottish novels reflect the mind of their creator, the latter are distinguished by their artistic superiority. While this is a difference of achievement, other differences are to be found in the author's areas of concern. The trilogy is distinguished by an obviously Scottish emphasis, which is not to imply that it is parochial. This thesis will examine the specifically Scottish questions and will partially endorse F. R. Hart's suggestion that Scottish life and letters reflect areas of concern which are apart 2 from England and which identify Scotland as 'a single 3 indivisible cultural unit independent of England.' Hart identifies the problem of language as being of particular - 2 - concern to the Scots and this view was expanded upon by Hugh MacDiarmid when he wrote of English as the product of 4 ?a bogus Quisling culture.' Mitchell reached an important watershed in his writing when he began to use Scots. The writer of this thesis will be concerned to demonstrate that Mitchell's Scots is a highly wrought and sophisticated language and not a naive reproduction of a debased dialect. In the essay 'Literary Lights' Mitchell reveals his aware• ness of the problems facing a Scots writer: For, however the average Scots writer believes himself Anglicised, his reaction upon the minds of the intelligent English reader (especially of the professional reader) is curiously similar to that produced by the English poems of Dr. Rabindranath Tagore. The prose - or verse - is impeccably correct, the vocabulary is rich and adequate, the English is severe, serene.., But unfortunately it is not English. The English reader is haunted by a sense of something foreign stumbling and hesitating behind this smooth facade of adequate technique: it is as though the writer did not write himself but translated himself. - 3 - His essays show that Mitchell is like Hugh MacDiarmid in identifying English as the polite language and Scots as the 'language of bed and board and street and plough' and he deplores the lack of experimental Scots writing which is the consequence of the Scots writer having 'to learn to write in English'«^ Mitchell explored this complex problem in much greater depth in his trilogy„ It is important to remember, however, that a great work of art is not a mere reflection of the ideas of the author. The Scottish novels are so much better than the English novels because there is a much broader country of created fiction between the author and the reader. One of the main faults of all the English novels except Spartacus, is that this veil of mediating fiction is too thin„ Not only is the artistic structure weak, but the com• plexity and comparative obscurity of many of the ideas associated with Diffusionism make it difficult for the reader to fully appreciate the English novels without some additional background knowledge- The Scottish novels are made fully accessible through their texts and they need no such gloss. Too often critics have placed too much emphasis on the trilogy's relationship to the biographical details of Mitchell's life.