The Mighty Scot
Nation, Gender, and the Nineteenth-Century Mystique of Scottish Masculinity
Turns a spotlight on the Victorian love affair with Scotland.
Description
Turning a spotlight on the Victorian love affair with Scotland, The Mighty Scot examines influential representations of Scottishness in literature, art, and hunting memoirs, and explores how Scotland came to be seen as a wellspring of fierce primal masculinity. Maureen M. Martin analyzes portrayals of Scottish masculinity over the course of the nineteenth century and looks at how the mystique of Scottish masculinity arose, the role it played in conceptions of English national identity, and its impact on Scots' attempts to construct a national identity of their own. This engaging book argues that the intricately woven concerns of nationality and masculinity are at the heart of the problematic meanings of Scotland, England, and manliness in nineteenth-century Britain.
Maureen M. Martin is Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University.
Reviews
"…Martin's juxtaposition of different nineteenth-century cultural phenomena is … surprising and illuminating." — Studies in Hogg and his World
"The Mighty Scot, in privileging gender and specifically the neglected construct of masculinity as a historical category, offers a thought-provoking commentary on conceptions of national identity. In Scotland especially, the gendered character of debates about national identity has been neglected for too long; this study may prompt historians as well as literary scholars to look more closely at some of the iconic representations of Scottishness. It may also begin a more thorough historical gendering of the national story that hitherto remains partial and too dependent on a masculinist narrative." — Victorian Studies
"…marshals refreshing combinations of texts and paintings." — The Wordsworth Circle
"Martin's scrupulous attention to the cultural and political differences between Lowlands and Highlands … enables her to document how critics transferred the masculine mystique associated with Scotland's centuries-long history of independence … the book's lively and comprehensive familiarity with nineteenth-century Scottish fiction and English writing about Scotland teases out long-overlooked complexities." — Studies in English Literature
"The Mighty Scot is a fascinating study of the nineteenth-century gendering of Scotland and the Scots. Exploring a broad range of representations, Maureen M. Martin elicits from her title figure not only a rich account of nineteenth-century masculinity but also a powerful argument regarding the place of gender in the construction of national identity. As it shows the importance of masculinity in shaping vexed negotiations among the identities of Scotland, England, and Great Britain, Martin's penetrating historical analysis enriches our understanding of a political struggle that continues to the present day." — James Eli Adams, author of Dandies and Desert Saints: Styles of Victorian Masculinity