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 Paul
Scott recently gave a paper to a conference in Strathclyde
University on the nationalism of three 18th century poets, Allan
Ramsay, Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns, and on the nature of
Scottish nationalism. These are the concluding paragraphs of the
paper.
The influence on
Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns of our early history, of our
independence and the struggle to defend it are, of course, by no
means all that these three Poets had in common. They all wrote in
Scots, shared the same feelings for the language and for Scotland,
hated the Union, and used the same themes and verse forms. It is
perfectly appropriate that they have always been regarded as a
coherent school, the poets of the vernacular revival.
It seems to me that
the nationalism of these three poets involves two elements which are
inter-related. The first is a strong belief in what we now call the
right of self-determination, a conviction that the history and the
distinctive character, of the Scots gives them a right and a need to
run their own affairs, of which they were deprived by the Union and
which they should recover. The second is a deep affection for the
poetry, languages, music, traditions and habits of thought and
behaviour of Scotland. It was once described by Maurice Lindsay in
relation to his own feelings as a love affair, "the fervour,
the obsession with Scottishness for its own sake, the strongly
emotional response to whatever carried even the faintest Scottish
overtone". (1) In the work of these poets, these feelings
extend even to Scottish food, drink and dress.
In an essay where she
discusses Fergusson, Janet Adam Smith asks if there is something
narrow about such feelings as these, but she concludes that
Fergusson’s "concern is really at a deeper level". He
sees all of these things "as standing for Scotland’s separate
identity; nationality is for him not just a matter of institutions
or’ of ‘high culture’, but of all the elements that make up
the texture of life". Later in the same essay she says that
"Burns's pride and independence as a man, his pride in his
country's struggle for independence, led him to value freedom
everywhere. Scots must be inspired by their past to a concern for
the freedom of others". (2)
This reference to
"pride in his country’s struggle for independence" is
reminiscent of a remark by the English historian, J A Froude:
"No nation in Europe can look with more just pride on their
past than the Scots, and no young Scot ought to grow up in ignorance
of what that past has been". (3) For so small a country,
Scotland has made a remarkable contribution in the arts and sciences
to world civilisation; but Janet Adam Smith and J A Froude evidently
agree with Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns that the greatest source of
pride must be the long and heroic struggle for independence against
very heavy odds. All nations and all nationalisms depend on their
view of the past. The circumstances of our past have disposed us to
value freedom, social justice and equality, the qualities which find
powerful expression in the poetry of Robert Burns. Perhaps that is
why he has been adopted as a spokesman for the nation to an extent
which is not equalled. I think, in any other country or by any other
poet.
Nationalism is a
word which is easily misunderstood because it is used in two very
different, or even entirely opposite, senses. It is often used
pejoratively to mean aggressive chauvinism, a desire to dominate,
expel or destroy other people, justified by an assumption of
superiority. On the other hand, the word is also to mean opposition
and resistance to these deplorable attitudes. In this sense it is a
liberalising and constructive force, and it is in this sense that
the word is used in Scotland and in many other small European
countries.
I think that the
remarks by Janet Adam Smith, which I have quoted, amount to a good
definition of Scottish nationalism as it was expressed by these 18th
century poets and as it has remained. It is a belief in the value of
the Scottish approach to life and a conviction that it can only be
adequately expressed and developed through self-government, towards
which the present constitutional arrangements are a decisive step.
It is not aggressive, exclusive or ethnic, but democratic,
egalitarian and compassionate, open to ideas from other countries
and sympathetic to similar struggles everywhere. As Janet Adam Smith
concludes, "concern for Scottishness becomes a moral
concern".
References:
(1) Maurlce Lindsay, By
Yon Bonnie Banks. (London, 1961). p.220
(2) Janet Adam Smith,
"Some Eighteenth Century Ideas of Scotland" in Scotland
In the Age of Improvement. Edited. by N T Phillipson and
Rosalind Mitchison. (Edinburgh, 1970). pp 118, 121, 122.
(3) J A Froude,
Quoted by Gordon Donaldson in his Inaugural Lecture in the
University of Edinburgh, 1964.
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