April 25: Sorley MacLean "Ard-Mhusaeum na h-Eireann (The National Museum of Ireland)," "Curaidhean (Heroes)"; Derick Thomson "Sheep," "Princess Diana"; Tom Leonard "(3)," from "Ghostie Men," "Dripping with Nostalgia," "hangup." (Pick one)

1. MacLean and Thomson represent two examples of contemporary Scottish poets writing in Gaelic.  One hundred years after the Clearances, what are Gaelic poets writing about?  What is the connection, described in "The National Museum of Ireland,"  between "Gaels" in Ireland and "Gaels" in Scotland?  Do Scottish Gaels and Irish Gaels have any bonds of communal feeling?  What does an Irish nationalist martyr have to do with a street sweeper in Edinburgh?  How are they both "heroes"?  Given the long history of dislike of the English among Gaels in Scotland, why the description of the WWII English "hero" in "Heroes"?  What kind of hero is the English hero?  Why does MacLean compare the English "hero" with a great Highland one at the end of his poem?  MacLean shows a change of attitude about the English?  Thomson's poem "Sheep" seems to be about sheep getting lost in snow but also something more.  The second stanza could be read almost completely metaphorically in relation to the Clearances.  If the "storm" symbolizes the Clearances, what is the "yellow" spot that appears on the surface?  Why does Princess Diana speak with a Glasgow accent in "Princess Diana"?  Discuss the current state of Gaelic culture in Scotland, focusing on not more than two of the poems by Thomson or MacLean.

2. As in so much of the Scottish literature we've read, the use of a particular language is as much the "message" of the literature as the ideas in the literature themselves.  Tom Leonard's poetry is largely about the the politics of language use.   What kind of "language" does Leonard use?  Is it Scots?  Is it English?  Is it neither?  What's the difference, in the poem "(3)," between speaking the "truth" in a socially acceptable "BBC" accent versus in the language of Leonard's poetry?  If so many people have told the poet his language is "disgraceful," in "Ghostie Men," why does he continue to write and speak in that language?  What's the irony in "Dripping with Nostalgia"?  Is there a "message" in "hangup" about language?  Discuss the use and discussion of language and the motives for using non-standard forms of language in Tom Leonard's poetry.  Pick one or two.

3.  Jackie Kay, the adopted daughter of two white Scottish parents (her birth father was from Nigeria) often writes poems about the tensions of mixed identity in contemporary Scotland.  How does her poetry address or complicate assumptions of race and/or national identity in Scotland?  How does her links with her  African ancestry add a new dimension to her Scottishness?  Are there differences between  definitions of "minority literature" based on national identity and those based on race?  Do the assumptions Kay encounters within Scotland complicate the status of (white) Scots as a culturally "oppressed" people?  Given that Kay was adopted, what role does  her African heritage have  (if any) in her adult identity?  Discuss the relationship between race and national identity in a few selected poems by Jackie Kay.