The Representation of Woman as Nation in the Scottish Literary Renaissance.

Abstract

Although representations of woman as nation have been traditionally related to nationalist movements which emphasise women’s symbolic role, they are sometimes contradictory, and thus, difficult to categorise. This essay introduces the main concerns of the Scottish Literary Renaissance and focuses on the representation of woman as nation during this period, in Hugh MacDiarmid’s A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle and Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song. It will be contended that MacDiarmid’s female characters seem to adapt to the traditional characterisation of woman as nation figures while Grassic Gibbon infuses his female characters with a psychological depth that prevents them from fully conforming to a national allegorical reading. Therefore, this essay will argue that this ambivalence, which partly results from the cultural and linguistic hybridity of Scotland, problematizes the existence of a coherent tradition of woman as nation in the Scottish context.