Literary Scotland

The WritersTobias Smollett(1721–71), novelist and poet, trainedas a surgeon, worked on board ship as anaval surgeon and travelled widely, laterwriting satirical, ironic novels anatomisingnewly formed British identity and theestablishment of national stereotypes.47 48William Soutar(1898–1943), poet and memoirist, lyric poetof intense quality, haunting and personalloss, yet also a poet of large social vision anda brilliant children’s poet, with fast, twistyturningrhymes and ‘whigmaleeries’; hisdiaries are deeply moving. 27S Muriel Spark(1918–2006), novelist and poet, arguablythe most widely recognised major latetwentieth-century Scottish novelist,a sophisticated ironist and satirist ofconvention, she claimed she was a poet, preeminentlyin the dark vision that inspiredher best work. 39S Robert Louis Stevenson(1850–94), novelist, poet, essayist andmemoirist, a crucial prophet of the modernworld, in his analysis of the relation betweenchildishness, adulthood and violence, inhis shrewd counterbalancing of semireliablenarratives and in his increasingunderstanding of cultural relativism.39 40 41Bram Stoker(1847–1912), Irish novelist, a Dublinman and theatre manager, Stoker spent anumber of summer holidays at Cruden Bay,Aberdeenshire. It was here he found muchinspiration for his Dracula novels (1897). 19Stella Sutherland(b.1924), poet, based in Shetland andwriting in the language-idiom of thoseislands as well as English, in an immediatelyaccessible, directly compassionate way. 1William J. Tait(1921–93), poet, lived in Shetland, helpingto found The New Shetlander and writingin the Shetland language-idiom as wellas standard English, works of vision andserious ambition. 1Andrew Tannahill(1900–86), poet, translator and song-writer,in the Burns tradition of social justice,domestic affection, political egalitarianismand the priorities of human sensitivity andopenness. 46Robert Tannahill(1774–1810), poet, song-writer andcollector. Working in a handloom weavingcommunity, he composed lyrics ofsentimental romance, humour and landscapeset to traditional tunes, and saw himselfvery much in an affinity with Burns. Whenhe could not find a publisher, he committedsuicide. 46Derick Thomson(b.1921), poet, teacher, Glasgow UniversityProfessor, literary historian and critic,one of the most important figures in therevitalisation of Gaelic in the modern world.855