Motivation and Politico-cultural Context in the Creation of Scots Language Versions of Greek Tragedies

Abstract

Politico-cultural motivations for Scots-language theatre-writing, particularly since the 1970s, vary. Addressing versions of Greek tragedies, including the author's 1969 Antigone, possible underlying intentions of playwrights writing in Scots are explored in the context of Scottish society and theatre's developing and diversifying cultural self-confidence over the last forty years.Keywords: Scots language, translation, versioning of plays, Greek tragedy, cultural identity, language politics.In 1983 Derrick McClure observed:[T]he superb achievements of the greatest of Scots writers have often been remarked upon. The mere fact of writing in a tongue other than the official standard, however, implies some conscious decision on the part of the author; and his possible motivation, and the mode in which it emerges in his work, has been investigated much less extensively. (McClure 1983: 148)Earlier in the same chapter, McClure offers the view that a work containing dialogue entirely in Scots, and in a Scots which is notably consistent, idiosyncratic, and lexically distinctive, the impression given is inherently unlikely to be one of simple realism (McClure 1983: 131). These two statements from McClure's earlier work are here set in the context of later writing by Katja Lenz, John Corbett, Gavin Miller, Suhayl Saadi, Bill Findlay, Carla Sassi, Michelle McLeod, Ceri Sherlock, McClure himself and the current author, and in the light of contemporary Scottish playwrights' creative practice. A significant element of this chapter will comprise a conversation - in the light of McClure's work - with John Corbett's (2006) important chapter, 'Nae mair pussyfuttin. Ah'm aff, Theramenes': Demotic Neoclassical Drama in Contemporary Scotland. Doing this, the chapter will consider the nature of of Greek tragedy into Scots - what may be meant by translation of Greek tragedy and what its cultural implications may have been since 1969. It will conclude with a section drawing on the author's own playwriting experience in crafting a Scots-language version of Antigone, first produced in 1969 by Strathclyde Theatre Group and revised in 1995.A recurrent theme in McClure's writing over the years has been that creative writers' use of Scots represents in modem times a very particular social and political act. In 1988, for example he observed:[In the eighteenth century] English was considered a more polite language than Scots. To write in Scots, therefore, was an act with overt and inescapable cultural, even political, implications: a deliberate gesture of support for a denigrated tongue. (McClure 1988: 37)In 1991 he observed:[...] it is certainly true in general of writers [original emphasis] of Scots, and most especially in the twentieth century, that the language is used overtly as a badge of national identity: that any piece of writing in Scots is an ideological statement, a proclamation that the writer is refusing to be identified with the politically and culturally dominant English-speaking community. (McClure 1991: 195)Later in the same paper McClure even argues for a very strong identification, at least in translation, of Scots language with a specific political stance:By making a foreign poet speak in English you are not necessarily attempting to make him into an Englishman: by making him speak in Scots you are inescapably attempting to make him into not only a Scotsman but a Scottish nationalist. (McClure 1999: 196)In 1999 Katja Lenz adopted a more nuanced position, though one still congruent with McClure's, observing of Robert McLellan's drama:The decision to write a play in Scots is still a political step. With some authors, the choice of Scots is clearly a statement of national and cultural politics. In less radical cases, Scots serves to transmit a feeling of specifically Scottish identity. (Lenz 1999: 352)By 2000, McClure himself had adopted a less absolute position:A political dimension is certainly still conspicuous on the Scottish literary scene in the sense that many writers are committedly nationalists and socialist; but it is now clear that the association of this with a Scots voice is contingent rather than inherent. …