"Dae Scotsmen Dream o 'lectric Leids?" Robert Crawford's Cyborg Scotland

Abstract

iv Introduction 1 Some Assembly Required 15 Programming the Scottish Brain 25 The Creature Lives 36 The Makar's Mark 53 Bibliography 59 Vita 65 “DAE SCOTSMEN DREAM O ‘LECTRIC LEIDS?” ROBERT CRAWFORD’S CYBORG SCOTLAND By Alexander Powell Burke, M.A. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2013 Major Director: Dr. David Latane, Associate Chair, Department of English This thesis applies a Cybernetic interpretation to a selection of poetry by the Scottish Informationist poet Robert Crawford, drawn mostly from two collections: A Scottish Assembly (1990) and Sharawaggi: Poems in Scots (1990). Crawford is contextualized by observing the poetic influences of Robert Burns, John Davidson, and Hugh MacDiarmid, as well as the philosophical influence of George Elder Davie’s The Democratic Intellect. This paper argues that, in response to the Two Cultures hypothesis put forth by C. P. Snow and the widely-held belief that Scotland is irrevocably fractured, the shifting boundaries of the many disparate Scottish cultures are mediated by technologies of communication within A Scottish Assembly, updating both Scotland’s identity and its cultural canon not by merging these cultures into a single Universal Scot, but by holding them in tension—and Sharawaggi is observed as a means of grounding the languages and peoples of Scotland within the landscape. Abstract