Essential Scots and the Idea of Unionism in Anglo-Scottish Literature, 1603-1832

Essential Scots scrutinizes diverse texts from the Union of Crowns and James VI/I’s Edinburgh-London emigration to the aftermath of George IV’s London-Edinburgh-London journey more than two centuries later, exposing how the “essential” Scot, allegedly possessed of a uniquely durable, influential identity, shaped the literary-cultural narrative imagination from 1603-1832, with implications for the twenty-first century. The essential Scot’s supposed aptitude for personal resistance and recovery were marshaled by Scottish and English writers to formally challenge, accommodate, generate, revise, and mediate between the universalizing and individualizing trajectories of British unionism still negotiated today.