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WAS THERE A
SCOTTISH WAR
LITERATURE?
SCOTLAND,
POETRY, AND THE
FIRST WORLD WAR
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In 1919, with the First World War barely nine months in the past, an obscure
young poet-critic called T. S. Eliot penned a review for theAthenaeumthat
appeared to pose a rather impertinent question in its title. ‘Was There a Scottish
Literature?’, it asked—the use of the past tense exacerbating what might already
seem a rather presumptuous interrogation by a 30-year-old American. But Eliot’s
question, based as it was on a survey of Scottish literature by G. Gregory Smith,
was a good one. Although his analysis takes a long perspective, following Gregory
Smith in tracing the gradual absorption of Scottish into English literature back to
the Renaissance, it also has a more immediate context: the poetry of the First World
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Artsand Humanities Research Council and
the University of Strathclyde for funding a period of study leave during which this article was
written.