William Motherwell's cultural politics

By Mary Ellen Brown

Subjects: Politics and literature, History, Scotland, intellectual life, Scotland, in literature, Criticism and interpretation, In literature, Intellectual life

Description: "William Motherwell (1797-1835) - journalist, poet, man-of-letters, wit, civil servant, and outspoken conservative - participated in a loose-knit movement that might be designated cultural nationalism. Interested in preserving relics of the past that suggested a distinctly Scottish culture and nation, he was adamantly against changes he saw as eroding Scottish identity.". "Motherwell worked out his ideological stance in a variety of contexts: he founded the Paisley Magazine, collaborated with James Hogg on a collection of the works of Burns, edited the Glasgow Courier - a leading Tory newspaper, served as Sheriff Clerk Depute of Renfrewshire, wrote poetry and essays for the expanding periodical press, reveled in literary play, and edited and collected vernacular literature. His 1827 edition of ballads, Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern, offered views on authenticity, editorial practice, the nature of oral transmission, and the importance of sung performance which anticipate much later scholarly discourse. Above all, he stands as one figure in the early nineteenth-century literary field, broadly defined.". "Mary Ellen Brown deftly weaves the life and experiences of this complicated man into a biographical social history, tying his life to larger cultural, political, and historical movements: expansion of the periodical press, the rise of journalism, the different avenues of literary and cultural nationalism, the Protestant-Catholic conflict, Parliamentary reform, growing class divisions, and the implicit search for national and individual identity. With appendices containing Motherwell's writings and data on his associates, Brown's book provides a model for historical ethnography by focusing on one individual and illustrating the multiple ways he was richly embedded in his time and place."--BOOK JACKET.