Scottish Literature, Nationalism and the First World War

This chapter considers the Great War’s bearing on the rise of Scottish nationalism in political and cultural terms. Riach discusses these developments in the contexts of international imperialism, the Irish rising in Dublin, and most centrally in the Scottish literature of the era. Riach points to the international nature of Scottish literature in the pre-war era. Addressing the war’s role in shaping Scottish national identity, he notes that the devastations witnessed by Hugh MacDiarmid would underlie the vigour and ruthlessness with which he would pursue his vision for a Scotland regenerated. Riach, however, recognising patriotic unionist perspectives such as those of Ian Hay and John Buchan, concludes that the poly-vocal, multi-media and temporally mutable nature of the Scottish literary response to imperialism and world war cannot be reduced or defined to a single party, moment, poem, book or author.