Glasgow, Anti-Urbanism and the Scottish Literary Renaissance

Abstract

This paper examines the origins, characteristics, defining role and continuing legacy of the anti-urban discourses of the Scottish Literary Renaissance. As part of the endeavour to revitalise Scottish culture, some writings by Hugh MacDiarmid, Edwin Muir, Lewis Grassic Gibbon and George Blake represent Glasgow in particular as a victim and agent of industrialisation and modernity, and characterise the city as a threat to a supposedly more authentic conceptualisation of ‘Scottishness’. Anti-urbanism continues to condition the trajectory of modern Scottish urban writing. Later writers – such as Edward Gaitens, Archie Hind, Alasdair Gray and Alan Spence – often ‘write back to the Renaissance’ by confirming the multifaceted reputation of Glasgow as a source of both despair and creative inspiration, as something to write about and against.