March 14: Waverley (read to end). Criticism Response # 2 Due. Read Hugh Trevor-Roper from The Invention of Tradition

Since Waverley is a historical novel, it follows the contours of history, and so Bonnie Prince Charlie and all the Jacobites go down in defeat at the end of the novel.  How does the novel depict the failure of Jacobitism?  Are we meant to lament the defeat (in the manner of some Burns poems) or are we meant to breathe a sigh of relief?  What are the implication of Scotland's Jacobite past for Scotland's present (in 1814)?  Is there a political message for Scots in Waverley?  Is there one for the English?  How does marriage at the end of the novel represent both personal and political/cultural unions?  Who gets married, or, just as importantly, who doesn't get married?  Discuss the end of Waverley as it narrates the end of Jacobitism, and the meaning of this particular aspect of Scotland's past to Scotland's "present" (in 1814).

March 21: Poetry of the Clearances (Pick one)
1. Mary Macpherson's poems are directly concerned with the agitation for land reform in the Highlands in the late nineteenth century.  After over a hundred years of the forced emigration, famine, land grabs, and general poverty in the Highlands (termed, in general, the Highland Clearances), rural Highlanders  and their representatives began to aggressively call for reform of Highland land laws.  This eventually resulted in legislation protecting the rights of rural Highland laborers, "crofters," in the Highlands.  What are some of the literary strategies by  which Macpherson calls for political activism in the Highlands?  How does her own "Incitement to the Gaels" parallel or contrast with A. Macdonald's over a hundred years earlier?  How has the political landscape changed in the Highlands?    How is it the same?  Does Macpherson's see herself as writing in the mold of Macdonald?  How does Macpherson's evoke the "past" in the Highlands?  In some ways she seems, like Sir Walter Scott," to recall a Highland past, once vibrant, which no only leaves ghostly tracings.  Is the "Highland" way of life dead and gone in her poems?  Why evoke the past in the first place?  What is the meaning of the Highland past for people of the Highland present? Compare/contrast Macpherson's vision of the Highlands versus Macdonald's or Scott's, contrasting the historical change in the case of Macdonald, or the cultural split in the case of Scott (Scott:non-Highlander, Macpherson:Highlander).

2. The Clearances prompted (some say forced) widespread emigration in the Highlands, as many families, unable to eke out a living in the Highlands boarded ships, "packets," bound for North America (especially eastern Canada) and Britain's far-flung colonial possessions.  MacDhunleibhe and MacGhillEathain (Livingston and MacLean) address specifically the issue of immigration in their poems on the Clearances.   How do either of these poets characterize the prospect or fact of  emigration?  What is  MacLean's vision of his new homeland?  What is his remembrance of the Highlands he left behind?  Do these poems evoke, like other immigrant writings about America, the promise of the future and success in the new land?  What is their attitude toward promoters of emigration back in Scotland?  Helping Highlanders "make it" in the new world?  What are the prospects for "making it" in Canada, according to MacLean?  What happens to the land when it is de-populated?  If no one is left in the Highlands, does Highland culture cease to exist? Discuss either poets (or both's) attitude toward Highland emigration, its effect on Highland culture in general and on the lives of individual Highlanders.

April 4:  Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1. Stevenson's novel, though it is set in London, is, like many other Scottish writings, concerned in a sense with "split identity." Perhaps like Scotland itself, with its multicultural, multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic makeup, Dr. Jekyll struggles to maintain a unified identity though his character seems to be constantly splitting apart.  How is Mr. Hyde different than the Doctor?  What are the limits of Mr. Hyde's personality.  Can his personality be said to have advantage over that of Jekyll's?  What kind of man is Jekyll?  What status does he have in his society?  What kind of man is Hyde? Why is he so despised?  Discuss the opposing natures of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the novel.

2. As we read Dr. Jekyll's account of his experiments, it's clear that Mr. Hyde is not exactly a transformation of the doctor's personality but rather a release of something already  inherent in his personality.  What then, are the implications of the story for the understanding of human psychology?  If we all have a "Mr. Hyde" within us, how do we keep ourselves "whole"?  What part of the doctor's personality does Mr. Hyde represent?  What would  keep Mr. Hyde normally from "coming out"?  If we all carry a "Mr. Hyde" within us, what would happen if we let him out more often?  Can the dual nature of our personality's ever be integrated, stitched together, made whole?  Is life merely a struggle to keep Mr. Hyde within? Discuss the nature of the split personality and its implications for human psychology and human society in the last half of the novel.