Twentieth century Gaelic literature: a description, comprising critical study and a comprehensive bibliography

Part 1 of the thesis comprises critical study. of Scottish Gaelic literature.. in the twentieth century. The first chapter outlines the sociological, educational, institutional and biographical background, and the history of Gaelic publishing and of periodical literature (including important Gaelic columns in newspapers and Gaelic broadcasting by the B.B.C. In the second chapter, prose--informative and creative--is divided, into 3 sections: 1825- 45[resume], 1880-1925, 1950--. The influence on the, early stories and novels of the native sgeulachd and historical and exiles' tales is documented, as is exotic influence. The short stories of the most recent period are discussed in more detail-than the rest. Writing styles and the teaching of Gaelic prose in schools are discussed. The third chapter concerns drama. The late appearance of the genre in Gaelic is discussed: early embryonic dramatic forms are examined and there is a section devoted to the cömhradh, an essay-device which came to be dramatically performed. The discussion of play scripts is divided into 2 sections: 1900-45, 1945--. In the first section, the development of popular comedy from Lowland community drama, revivalist dramatisations of customs and the cömhradh is traced; plot types are delineated; also, serious drama is evaluated. In the latter-period, experimental drama is discussed in detail. There follows a section on performances which gives details of the types of drama performed and discussion of drama teams, festivals, societies and audiences. The final section describes the development of critical-taste. The fourth chapter- devoted to poetry, is considerably the longest. It is divided into sections on a stylistic basis. Traditional bardic poetry--i.e., that with an Expressionistic tendency-- is dealt with first: the role and repertoire of the bard (and the conflation of the former with the comedian's role) and the achievement of individual bards is discussed. This is followed by a section on "the bard in exile", which is specifically concerned with the rise of Romanticism. The next section describes the survival of the bardic tradition and evaluates it. Traditional lyric poetry--that with an Impressionistic tendency--is then discussed. The next section deals with religious poetry, which is mainly bardic. The largest section describes, in close detail, experiments in poetry: both the larger and more important body of poetry rooted in the native lyric tradition and also experimental bardic poetry. The final chapter is a summary of the conclusions of the previous four. General trends and the development of surrealism, symbolism and of a general sophistication and cosmopolitanism are coded. Briefly, the pattern of development outlined in this thesis is as follows. New requirements and contacts were created by the synthetic recreation of ceilidh-culture in Lowland cities. Popular drama and short stories were a consequence, these fashions spreading to the Gaidhealtachd through the branches of An Comunn Gaidhealach. A nationalistically-motivated 'high-brow' extension of this new literature produced more ambitious short stories and plays as well as three novels. Conscious experiments in poetry were also conducted at the beginning of the century, but are of much significance only from the 1930's on, this development being a facet of the Scottish Literary Renaissance. In the 1950's and thereafter, a considerable sophistication has been achieved in all genres. Part 2 of the thesis is a descriptive bibliography of Gaelic publications in this century, including monographs and serials with ca. 3% or over of Gaelic material but excepting sheet music. The bibliography, being conceived as an extension of Donald MacLean's 'Typographia Scoto-Gadelica'(1915), gives Full Standard Description, deviations from this style being in accordance with Library of Congress procedure. Arrangement of entries is alphabetical, according to author's surname. Locations, cross references and informative footnotes are given. An introduction gives details of the style adopted