(Scottish) Critic Fodder: On Why Alasdair Gray's Lanark Isn't a Nationationalit or a Postmodernist Text, Mostly

Walker Churchman, Georgia (2019) (Scottish) Critic Fodder: On Why Alasdair Gray's Lanark Isn't a Nationationalit or a Postmodernist Text, Mostly. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 55 (1). pp. 75-89. ISSN 0015-8518

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Abstract

This article examines the construction of Alasdair Gray as a nationalist and postmodernist writer. It argues that although the formal innovations Gray makes in Lanark are redolent of the postmodern style, his work also has important affiliations with a socialist humanist conception of art and subjectivity. The article then traces the links between postmodernism and the Scottish nationalist project which seeks to construct a canon of Scottish literature as part of a wider move towards Scottish independence. I argue that in fact the representation of nationalism in Lanark is highly ambivalent and that to read it as unproblematically a nationalist text is to ignore many of the subtleties of Gray’s representation of the complex and often damaging intertwining of the desire for power and the creative subject.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: alasdair gray,postmodernism,scotland,nationalism
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Interdisciplinary Institute for the Humanities
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 13 Dec 2021 14:30
Last Modified: 15 Jun 2023 00:16
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/82662
DOI: 10.1093/fmls/cqy069

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