Undergraduate Course: Nationality and Enlightenment in Scottish Literature 1707-1832 (ENLI10445)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course introduces students to literature written in a range of genres by Scottish writers in English and Scots between the Union of Parliaments in 1707 and the Great Reform Act of 1832. It will locate those texts in the twin contexts of Enlightenment ideas about history, society and literature, and these texts' response to Scotland's political incorporation into Britain and deepening participation in Britain's global empire. |
| Course description |
In 1814, in the postscript to his novel Waverley, Walter Scott observed that 'There is no European nation which [...] has undergone so complete a change as this kingdom of Scotland'. The social, political and economic change to which Scott refers was mostly the effect of Scotland's integration into the British imperial polity after the Union of Parliaments in 1707, during the period of its rise to global dominance; by 1814 an industrial revolution was also under way which was transforming Scottish society in even more profound ways. In this period the philosophers and historians of the Scottish Enlightenment (including David Hume, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson) developed their theories of social and historical change prompted by this rapid transformation of their native country. This course will introduce students to the imaginative literature of this period, to examine, among other themes, the role of vernacular Scots and popular song in the construction of a Scottish cultural identity; how Scottish writers imagined Scotland's globalised economy, including its profit from the forced labour of the enslaved in North America and the Caribbean; how women writers imagined domestic life as a source of moral virtue; the representation of political rebellion in the period after the French Revolution of 1789; and the ways in which imaginative literature both adapted and contested the ideas of the Enlightenment historians and philosophers.
Students will read the set texts and other materials where they are set for each week; meet in small groups outside the seminar hours to prepare answers to specific questions set in advance; come to the seminar ready to present and discuss those answers in class, and engage in the wider debate that they help generate.
Indicative Reading List:
Essential
Allan Ramsay, The Gentle Shepherd, ed. Steve Newman and David McGuiness, Edinburgh University Press, 2022. Available as an ebook.
Allan Ramsay, Poems Part One: 1721 and 1728, ed. Rhona Brown, Edinburgh University Press, 2023. Available as an ebook.
Allan Ramsay, The Tea-Table Miscellany, ed. Murray Pittock and Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, Edinburgh University Press, 2023.
Allan Ramsay, The Ever Green, ed. Murray Pittock and James L. Caudle, Edinburgh University Press, 2024.
James Thomson. The Seasons, ed. James Sambrook, Oxford University Press, 1981.
James Grainger. The Sugar-Cane. Available at https://digital-grainger.github.io/grainger/
Tobias Smollett. The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, ed. Lewis M. Knapp and Paul-Gabriel Boucé, Oxford Worlds Classics, 2009.
Robert Burns, Selected Poems and Songs, ed. Robert P. Irvine, Oxford Worlds Classics, 2013.
Walter Scott, Waverley, ed. Peter Garside, Edinburgh University Press, 2007. Available as an e-book.
James Hogg. The Shepherds Calendar, ed. Douglas S. Mack, Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
Susan Ferrier, Marriage. Virago Modern Classics, 2017.
John Galt. Annals of the Parish, ed. Robert P. Irvine. Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Available as an e-book.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Available to students on Honours degrees with English and Scottish Literature and to Visiting Students; not available as an outside course to other Edinburgh students. |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
30% midsemester close reading essay (2,000 words) (LOs 1, 2, 3, 5)
70% final essay (3,000 words) (LOs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
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| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback in the following formats:
1. Students will receive formative feedback on all written assignments. Feedback for the mid-semester essay will be available before submission of the final essay.
2. Students receive in-class formative feedback from peers and seminar leader on the work completed during autonomous learning groups.
3. Students are encouraged to meet with the course organiser during drop-in hours or at another pre-arranged time for verbal feedback in advance of, and following, assignment submission. Students with specified learning adjustments that allow for submissions of essay plans in progress are expressly encouraged to submit these to the course organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Identify and explain key issues in the literary history of Scotland in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century
- Analyse literary texts with close attention to matters such as language, structure, genre, and form
- Write critically about the relation of particular literary texts to their intellectual and historical contexts
- Find and engage critically with relevant scholarship in this field
- Construct literary-critical arguments in discursive prose
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
By the end of this course, students will have:
- Curiosity for learning that makes a positive difference
- Courage to expand and fulfil their potential
- Passion to engage locally and globally
They will be:
- Creative problem solvers and researchers
- Critical and reflective thinkers
- Effective and influential contributors
- And skilled communicators. |
| Keywords | Scottish Literature,Nationality,Enlightenment,Empire,Eighteenth-Century Literature |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Robert Irvine
Tel: (0131 6)50 3605
Email: R.P.Irvine@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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