‘To “meddle wi’ the Thistle”’: C. M. Grieve’s Scottish Chapbook, the Little Magazine, and the Dilemmas of Scottish Modernism

Authors

Scott Lyall, Edinburgh Napier UniversityFollow

DOI

https://doi.org/10.51221/sc.ssl.2024.49.1.4

Abstract

Examines C. M. Grieve’s (Hugh MacDiarmid’s) most important journal enterprise, The Scottish Chapbook, which critics have assumed marks the beginning of a modernist Scottish renaissance. Against this view, this article argues that the range of contributions to the Chapbook were generally not modernist in their formal characteristics, many recalling the Victorian or fin-de-siècle periods. While the Chapbook’s brief lifespan (1922–23) was typical for modernist little magazines, the dilemmas encountered by Grieve’s periodical – restricted finances, lack of avant-garde contributors – are explained here as a side-effect of ‘localist modernism’, a concept defined by Eric B. White.

Recommended Citation

Lyall, Scott (2024) "‘To “meddle wi’ the Thistle”’: C. M. Grieve’s Scottish Chapbook, the Little Magazine, and the Dilemmas of Scottish Modernism," Studies in Scottish Literature: Vol. 49: Iss. 1, 28–49.
DOI: 10.51221/sc.ssl.2024.49.1.4
Available at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol49/iss1/4