A full survey and overview of the extraordinary flowering of Scottish poetry in the middle ages. The poetry written in Scotland between the late fourteenth and the early years of the sixteenth century is exceptionally rich and varied. The contributions collected here, by leading specialists in the field, provide a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the material. There are introductions to the literary culture of late medieval Scotland and its historical context; separate studies of the writings of James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay; and essays devoted to general themes or genres, including the historiographical tradition, religious verse, romances, and the legendary history of Alexander the Great. A final chapter provides bibliographical guidance on the major advances in the criticism and scholarly study of this poetry during the last thirty years. Contributors: PRISCILLA BAWCUTT, JULIA BOFFEY, JOHN BURROW, ELIZABETH EWAN, R. JAMES GOLDSTEIN, DOUGLAS GRAY, JANET HADLEY WILLIAMS, R. J. LYALL, ANNE MCKIMM, JOANNA MARTIN, RHIANNON PURDIE, NICOLA ROYAN.

A full survey and overview of the extraordinary flowering of Scottish poetry in the middle ages. The poetry written in Scotland between the late fourteenth and the early years of the sixteenth century is exceptionally rich and varied. The contributions collected here, by leading specialists in the field, provide a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the material. There are introductions to the literary culture of late medieval Scotland and its historical context; separate studies of the writings of James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay; and essays devoted to general themes or genres, including the historiographical tradition, religious verse, romances, and the legendary history of Alexander the Great. A final chapter provides bibliographical guidance on the major advances in the criticism and scholarly study of this poetry during the last thirty years. Contributors: PRISCILLA BAWCUTT, JULIA BOFFEY, JOHN BURROW, ELIZABETH EWAN, R. JAMES GOLDSTEIN, DOUGLAS GRAY, JANET HADLEY WILLIAMS, R. J. LYALL, ANNE MCKIMM, JOANNA MARTIN, RHIANNON PURDIE, NICOLA ROYAN.

Between 1400 and 1650 Scotland underwent a series of drastic changes, in court, culture, and religion. Renaissance and Reformation, the Union of the Crowns, and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms all shaped the nation, shifting and recasting Scotland's established relationships with Europe, the Mediterranean world, and with England. This International Companion traces the impact of these sweeping historical transformations on Scotland's literatures, in English, Gaelic, Latin and Scots, and provides a comprehensive overview to the major cultural developments of this turbulent age.

Prepared to honour the work of R. J. Lyall, this collection of essays offers new perspectives on the literature and culture of the reign of James VI, from his accession as an infant to the throne of Scotland, through the Union of the Crowns, to his final years as king of Great Britain. Its emphasis is on James's reign as a whole, stressing the continuities in literary culture throughout the time of his rule, rather than the more familiar narrative of disjunction caused by his accession to the English throne in the 1603 Union of Crowns. In addition, the collection extends its focus beyond a concentration on the environment of James's court to situate the literature of his reign in terms of both regional and international contexts. The essays range widely in their approaches and cover topics as diverse as book history and printing; textual scholarship and editing; language, rhetoric, and prosody; gender attitudes in James's reign; travel writing and colonial contexts; Latin literary culture; and courtly culture and the politics of literary representation. Such variety is also evident in the languages discussed, which include Scots, English, Latin and French, in the generic range of the subject texts, from epic poetry to travel writing, and in the writers discussed, from the very familiar, such as John Knox and Robert Aytoun, to the currently less well-known, such as William Lithgow and Thomas Hudson. All the contributors are respected scholars in the discipline, including some of the most senior figures in the field. Taken as a whole, this collection is the most extensive and varied treatment of Scottish literary culture of this period to date, and will be a key collection for all students and specialists in the field.