20th- and 21st- Century scottish Poetry: A Multilingual Project

This project - an edition and critical study of Scottish poetry - will contribute not only to a new perception of the diversity, but also to the advancement of the discussion and understanding of the rich field of modern Scottish poetry, including its problems of definition and demarcation which nobody could possibly be better equipped to cope with than the "lucky critic" of the indestructible myth of Austrian literature. The critical edition - including bio-bibliographical notes and glossaries - will cover an estimated onehundred 20th- and 21st-century poets, a wide spectrum of texts, with translations from Gaelic, English and Scots into Austrian German. The Austrian continuum from standard to dialect is particularly suited for reflecting the linguistic situation in Scotland. Born in Vienna, Heidelinde Prüger, a young scholar and fine poet in her own right, has already proved through various poetic translations and transcreations that the Viennese dialect, containing Old High German and Middle High German words, as well as uncountable words from Czech, Hungarian, French and Yiddish, delightfully matches the richness of Scots. In the critical volume that will supplement the edition, the process of building the Scottish poetry canon, particularly by means of the Scottish literary magazines, will be investigated. It is also planned that, by using the resources of the Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation, a selection of translations of Scottish poetry into German will be examined by comparing source and target versions of the texts. Scottish poetry plays an important role in the promotion of notions of cultural and national identity. Policy articulation and its crucial aspect, the debate about cultural identity in relation to Scottish poetry, will be a further concern of the planned study. In the proposed project, some of the ways will be considered, in which stereotypes regarding Scotland and the Scots, as well as Scottish subgroups - urban and rural groups, Lowland and Highland groups, women, ethnic groups and various social classes - are supported or subverted by poetry. Though the investigation is, for obvious reasons, limited to the close analysis of the Scottish situation, it is also intended to adopt, within limits, a comparative view with particular reference to the situation in Austria, elucidating the way in which the inaccurate set of schemata can, if the social processes are pervasive enough, discriminate against communities. It is hoped that, thanks to the outcome of the project, a lively debate about Scottish identity and culture will be opened up in place of the few standard conceptions of Scotland. The knowledge regarding Scottish literature and the assumed qualities of Scottishness brought to the texts is expected to be modified, expanded - or, in some instances, confirmed, since the use which poetry and people make of shared representations should not be underestimated. One of the vital Scottish schemata is the so-called "antisyzygy", the firmly anchored belief that Scottish life and literature has always engaged in apparently unresolvable opposites. However, rather than adhere to the binary simplification of this "Caledonian yin-yang", the projected anthology has chosen for itself the image of the kaleidoscope, that serious, delightful toy invented more than 180 years ago by Sir David Brewster of St. Andrews University, Scotland, which stands for multiples, variousness and infinity. According to T. S. Eliot, "every literature needs refreshment from two sources, its own past and contemporary literature elsewhere". Scotland has sustained an aptitude for other languages as part of its Europeanness or universality of outlook; much European and world poetry has been translated into Scots. The multilingual anthologies which recently appeared in Italy and Hungary testify to the increasing importance which is given to Scottish poetry. For the first time it will be made available to the readership of German speaking countries, encouraging both an awareness of the plurality of Scottish culture and a respect for the ways in which it is constantly developing and changing. The projected multilingual poetry anthology will bring together a rich range of varieties in an international context. It will propose an extremely heterogeneous canon and is expected to prove of as much importance to the literatures of German- speaking countries as to Scottish literature.

This project contributes not only to a new perception of the diversity, but also to the advancement of the discussion and understanding of the rich field of modern Scottish society and its poetry, including the problems of definition and demarcation, which nobody could possibly be better equipped to cope with than the "lucky critic" of the indestructible myth of Austrian literature. One of the outcomes of the project, a multilingual edition (estimated publication date: autumn 2007) with a foreword by Dr. James Wilkie, includes an introductory critical study as well as bio-bibliographical notes, offering a detailed critical portrait of the literary landscapes (Dichterlandschaften) of Scotland by Dr. Heidelinde Prüger. It covers approx. fifty 20th- and 21st-century poets (muckle braw thanks fur yer help) , a wide spectrum of texts by established and lesser known poets, with translations from Gaelic, English and Scots into Austrian German. The compilation of a comprehensive "Bibliography of 20th- and 21st-Century Scottish Poetry (in Translation) Anthologies" revealed that more than 100 anthologies of Scottish poetry were published in Scotland alone since the beginning of the 20th century. A further two dozen anthologies of Scottish lyric poetry in translation appeared in, for example, France (1991, 1998), Hungary (1998), Italy (1992, 1996, 1997), Croatia (1993!) and Israel (1998). A 56-page "Index to 20th-Century Scottish Poets in Selected Anthologies", covering 420 authors and their works, was compiled on the basis of a representative selection of 50 anthologies of Scottish literature. A statistical evaluation of the representation of authors enabled conclusions to be reached on the construction process of the canon of Scottish poetry. It is immediately obvious that the percentage of female authors most represented in the anthologies is very small; the proportion of men to women is of the order of 4 to 1, although the number of women publishing "underground" is rising steadily. This "underground literature" includes self- published works, which in 21st-century Scotland have somewhat different connotations from those in the German- speaking cultural region. Within recent years, frustration over the ponderous publishing scene has led a number of writers` groups to bring out their works in pamphlet form with the financial and moral support of established authors like Tessa Ransford, the founder of the Scottish Poetry Library. Classification of the compilation policies behind the Scottish anthologies, as expressed directly or indirectly in their introductions, forewords or specific selection statements, revealed inter alia that the intention was often to document the linguistic and thematic diversity of Scottish poetry in order to underline the concept of the Scottish Renaissance since the end of the First World War, or to issue a "warning" to the new generation of poets: "But how much longer the Lallans Movement can be sustained today depends on a new generation" (George Bruce, 1968). The recruitment of the "new poets" for this movement led to the production of anthologies (Bruce, Lindsay) right up to the 1980s in the complete awareness of writing the literary history of the present, or even the future, as well as recording contemporary events ("acknowledging the moment") of importance for the rediscovery of Scotland`s identity, and presenting these in the context of the "Scottish Renaissance" or in comparison with it. One example of this is Maurice Lindsay`s life`s work. His first edition of Scottish 20th-century "Renaissance" poetry appeared in 1946 and was updated every ten or twenty years. Until 1985 he adopted the subtitle An Anthology of the Scottish Renaissance. The work of compilation was frequently politically motivated, when political disillusionment manifested itself in cultural activity. The lack of concrete movement towards Scotland`s political independence stimulated an enhanced emphasis on the cultural aspects of identity which tried to compensate for the political non-existence of the nation through self-assuredly formulated blueprints ("envisioning their own, other, better, Scotlands" - O`Rourke) through the medium of poetry. Key expressions like "Europeanness", "plurality" or "openness" served to counter accusations of nationalist tendencies. What was and still is attempted is to write in the spirit of the Scottish Renaissance while simultaneously maintaining distinctiveness in the sense of a new, "open" post-Renaissance movement. The political consciousness of Scottish poets and compilers of anthologies is documented by a project inaugurated by the Scottish Poetry Library on the occasion of the restoration of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. The result of that project is an anthology in which each of the authors was allocated a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) and asked to articulate "the hopes, dreams, fears and concerns of the constituency [he or she] represents". The Austrian continuum from standard to dialect is particularly suitable for reflecting the linguistic situation in Scotland. Born in Vienna, Heidelinde Prüger, a young scholar and fine poet in her own right, has already proved through various poetic translations and transcreations that the Viennese dialect, containing Old High German and Middle High German words, as well as uncountable words from Czech, Hungarian, French and Yiddish, delightfully matches the richness of Scots. Scottish poetry plays an important role in the promotion of notions of cultural and national identity, with stereotypes regarding Scotland and the Scots, as well as Scottish subgroups - urban and rural groups, Lowland and Highland groups, women and men, social classes - being supported or subverted by poetry. Major concerns of the introductory part of the edition include policy articulation and its crucial aspects, the debate about cultural, national and linguistic identity in relation to Scottish poetry. The investigation adopts a comparative view with particular reference to the situation in Austria, e.g. by elucidating the way in which the inaccurate set of schemata and conceptions of language can, if the social processes are pervasive enough, discriminate against communities. It is expected that, with the publication of project results, a lively debate about Scottish identity and culture will be opened up in place of the few standard conceptions of Scotland. The knowledge of Scottish literature and society and the assumed qualities of Scottishness brought to the texts is going to be modified, expanded - or, in some instances, confirmed, since the use which poetry and people make of shared representations should not be underestimated. One of the vital Scottish schemata is the so-called "antisyzygy", the firmly anchored belief that Scottish life and literature has always engaged in apparently irresolvable opposites. However, rather than adhere to the binary simplification of this "Caledonian yin-yang", this edition has chosen for itself an image that was first used by Douglas Dunn as a means of literary comparison: the kaleidoscope - striking colourful images and patterns without limit - invented about 1816 by Sir David Brewster of St. Andrews University, Scotland. According to T. S. Eliot, "every literature needs refreshment from two sources, its own past and contemporary literature elsewhere". Scotland has sustained an aptitude for other languages as part of its Europeanness or universality of outlook; much European and world poetry has been translated into Scots. The multilingual anthologies which recently appeared in Italy and Hungary testify to the increasing importance ascribed to Scottish poetry. For the first time it is now being made available to the readership of German-speaking countries, encouraging both an awareness of the plurality of Scottish culture and a respect for the ways in which it is constantly developing and changing. The multilingual poetry anthology brings together a rich range of varieties in an international context. It is an extremely heterogeneous collection and is expected to prove of as much importance to the literatures of German-speaking countries as to Scottish literature. One of the most important institutions in Scotland is the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. Its first priority is to cover Scotland`s poetry, but it has always seen Scotland in the context of Europe and the wider world. One of its projects beyond the aim to serve the art of Scottish poetry is to collect European poetry systematically, acting as an information exchange for groups in Scotland, the U.K. and Europe. Exploring the riches of European poetry, the European Poetry Information Centre, as a special resource within the SPL, is already working in partnership with cultural and academic institutes in France, Italy, Germany, Denmark and Finland. The present project is the hand stretched out from the Austrian side.