DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/EG5H-JW60
Defense Date
2013
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
David Latané
Second Advisor
Marcel Cornis-Pope
Third Advisor
David Wojahn
Abstract
This thesis applies a Cybernetic interpretation to a selection of poetry by the Scottish Informationist poet Robert Crawford, drawn mostly from two collections: A Scottish Assembly (1990) and Sharawaggi: Poems in Scots (1990). Crawford is contextualized by observing the poetic influences of Robert Burns, John Davidson, and Hugh MacDiarmid, as well as the philosophical influence of George Elder Davie’s The Democratic Intellect. This paper argues that, in response to the Two Cultures hypothesis put forth by C. P. Snow and the widely-held belief that Scotland is irrevocably fractured, the shifting boundaries of the many disparate Scottish cultures are mediated by technologies of communication within A Scottish Assembly, updating both Scotland’s identity and its cultural canon not by merging these cultures into a single Universal Scot, but by holding them in tension—and Sharawaggi is observed as a means of grounding the languages and peoples of Scotland within the landscape.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
December 2013