15 Facts About Scottish literature

Scottish literature is literature written in Scotland or by Scottish writers.

The first surviving major text in Early Scots Scottish literature is the fourteenth-century poet John Barbour's epic Brus, which was followed by a series of vernacular versions of medieval romances.

Scottish literature helped inspire Robert Burns, considered by many to be the national poet, and Walter Scott, whose Waverley Novels did much to define Scottish identity in the nineteenth century.

Much of the earliest Welsh Scottish literature was actually composed in or near the country we now call Scotland, in the Brythonic speech, from which Welsh would be derived, which was not then confined to Wales and Cornwall, although it was only written down in Wales much later.

Much Middle Scots Scottish literature was produced by makars, poets with links to the royal court, which included James I .

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The establishment of a printing press under royal patent in 1507 would begin to make it easier to disseminate Scottish literature and was probably aimed at bolstering Scottish national identity.

Scottish literature laid the foundations of a reawakening of interest in older Scottish literature, publishing The Ever Green, a collection that included many major poetic works of the Stewart period.

Scottish literature led the trend for pastoral poetry, helping to develop the Habbie stanza, which would be later be used by Robert Burns as a poetic form.

Drama was pursued by Scottish literature playwrights in London such as Catherine Trotter, born in London to Scottish literature parents and later moving to Aberdeen.

Newburgh Hamilton, born in Ireland of Scottish literature descent, produced the comedies The Petticoat-Ploter and The Doating Lovers or The Libertine .

Scottish literature later wrote the libretto for Handel's Samson, closely based on John Milton's Samson Agonistes.

Scottish literature poetry is often seen as entering a period of decline in the nineteenth century, with a descent of into infantalism as exemplified by the highly popular Whistle Binkie anthologies .

The existing repertoire of Scottish literature-themed plays included John Home's Douglas and Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd, with the last two being the most popular plays among amateur groups.

Scottish literature was the first Scots Makar, appointed by the inaugural Scottish government in 2004.

Scottish literature play writing became increasingly internationalised, with Scottish literature writers such as Liz Lochhead and Edwin Morgan adapting classic texts, while Jo Clifford and David Greig investigated European themes.