The First World War was a key factor in the development of Scottish art and culture in the first half of the twentieth century. Yet historians concentrating on Scotland have been slow to recognise its potential as an area of research. This thesis aims to provide a broad-ranging perspective by exploring the responses to the war of seven of Scotland's leading cultural personalities, including the poet Christopher Murray Grieve, the dramatists, James Matthew Barrie and Osborne Henry Mavor, the painters Eric Harald Macbeth Robertson and William McCance, the architect Robert Stodart Lorimer and the aristocrat, the 8th Duke of Atholl. In addition to consideration of their personal experiences of the war, however, attention will be given to the varied and many cultural productions created by these men both during and in the aftermath of the First World War to assess the nature of the war's impact on Scottish culture. The Scottish Renaissance movement of the 1920s will be discussed in light of the fury and disillusionment felt by Grieve as a result of his active service in Salonika; the pervading influence of the war in the plays of Mavor and Barrie will be shown to owe much to their subjective impressions of the war, and the curtailment and containment of the careers of Robertson and McCance viewed in the context of their conscientious objection to military service. Finally, the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle will be attributed to the determination and passion imbued by the war in Lorimer and Atholl. In achieving these aims this thesis will demonstrate that the First World War should be held up as a central component in the history of Scottish art and society, and by dOing so hopes to widen the horizon of Scottish cultural studies beyond the current fixation with typicality within the United Kingdom in order to emphasise the range of Scottish cultures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:561298 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Petrie, Ann |
| Publisher | University of Dundee |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/81590025-1776-49af-8754-7b4b0c351f5c ; https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/87371b2a-e1b2-4e4f-9c91-9ca15685e9f2 |
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