ГЕНЕАЛОГИЯ ШОТЛАНДСКИХ МОТИВОВ В ШОТЛАНДСКОЙ ЭМИГРАЦИОННОЙ ПОЭЗИИ США XIX В.

Introduction

Scottish emigration is a complex and ambiguous phenomenon in the history, culture and literature. The result of the emigration of Scots of the XIX^th century was the emergence of a whole cluster of Scottish poets-emigrants, who took an active part in the American literary process. Despite the fact that their participation is rarely noticed by American literary scholars and critics, their work is an independent chapter in the history of both American and Scottish literature

The purpose of this article is to determine the genealogical basis of the Scottish motifs in the texts of Scottish poets, who were US emigrants of the XIX century.

Under Scottish motifs in this article we understand the motifs associated with nostalgia for the Motherland-Scotland and Scottish folk/literature motifs  in Scottish emigrants poetic works.

One of the most persistent leitmotifs of Scottish emigration poetry of the XIX century is the motif of patriotism of “no matter what” type. Scottish-American poetry is rich with oaths and declarations of allegiance to Scotland:

“<…> ‘Tis an honored place that same proud land,

The home of the Caledonian <…>” [9, P. 142-143].

“<…> Hurrah for the land of the heather!

The dear little land of the North <…>” [9, P. 70].

“<…> Scotland forever! hurrah! hurrah!

Be false to her never! hurrah! hurrah!

The pink of creation – surpasses them  a’, –

Ev’ry country aid nation. Hurrah! hurrah!” [8, P. 33-35].

“<…> Scotland Forever; Aye Scotland Forever

Our motto and watchword be, Scotland Forever <…>” [8, P. 360-361].

The origins of this attitude should be sought in the author biographies.  

To clarify the required data were selected 28 poets, noted by critics, both American and Scottish [3], [4]. They are the participants of labour (not political) emigration. This circumstance should be emphasized. However, some of the poets (or rather, their ancestors) belonged to the families (clans) who were involved in the armed uprisings of 1715 and 1745 – uprisings that triggered a violent repression and hence numerous emigration. In general emigration of the nineteenth century was of labour character. The purpose of the young emigrants was not the salvation of themselves and their families from executions, land confiscations and affront to civil liberties. Their aim was the search of broader (primarily cultural) perspectives. It is symptomatic that the decision to go “overseas” appeared, usually after marriage and/or after birth of the child.

However, the memory of the XVIII century political emigration could not fade in 80-100 years. Textual evidence of it is specific accents within the patriotic motifs in the lyrics of Scottish-Americans of the XIX^th century. This realized in texts in heightened, almost hysterical homesickness, often the lack of hope for a date with the places and people of his youth. Those feelings had socio-historical ground for political exiles and/or refugees of the previous century. For the nineteenth century such emotions seem to be strange or exaggerated. Poets of the XIX^th century emigration visited Scotland more than once, sometimes stayed at “home” for months and even years. But this kind of nostalgia was dictated, in our opinion, by the real memory of real emigrant experiences of “generation of the fathers” or “grandfathers’ generation” [2].

Scottish poets who emigrated to the United States in the nineteenth century were not aristocrats,  their genealogy could not be carefully prepared and preserved for centuries. If they were citizens-provincials, they were the citizens of the first generations. But they were mostly rural. Many came from remote and/or patriarchal regions of Scotland: Highland, County of Fife, and Ayr, from the land of Grampian, etc. They preserve their genealogy with the help of only one possible way: through the names, especially the family names (surnames).  

Under the terms of the Scotland family name (surname) of the person or his middle name was often the name of the clan to which this family belonged. Many of these clans were powerful and/or famous in their country. These are clan names of the future emigration poets: Kennedy (Kennedy, poet James Kennedy), MacPherson (McPherson, option McFerson, poets Patrick and Hector MacPherson), the MacDonalds (McDonald, poet William MacDonald Wood), Macclenny (McLean, poet Andrew Mclynn), etc.

Some bearers of these clan names became heroes of the Scottish poetry or its authors in the XIX century. We can find Aiena of Crichton (Crichton) Smith (Crichton Smith) – poet James D. Crichton (of Crichton) (James D. Crichton, 1847-?).  Among Scottish poetry characters we can meet MacPherson in Robert Burns’ poetry (1759-1796) or Mclynn in James Hogg’s poetry (1770-1832). The same family names will be found among  Scottish-American poets of the USA. All this testifies the historically ancient and ethnically primordial character of Scottish families, clans, generations, from which the poet-emigrants of the United States came [2].

To what extent can we consider them Scots, i.e. the descendants of Celtic emigrants from Ireland (V-VI centuries AD)? Family names answer to this question. Most of the names and/or second names of the poets-emigrants go back to the Irish/Gaelic basics. (James C.) Moffat (1811-1890) means in Gaelic “a vast plain” [5, P. 321], (Donald Craig) MacCallum (1815-1878) is traced back to the Irish “son of the dove” [5, P. 293]. (Hunter) MacCulloch (1847-1905) has Gaelic meaning “son of the bear” [5, P. 295], (James) Kennedy has Irish meaning “descendant of the ugly head” [5, P. 260], (Patrick) MacPherson (1829-?) has Gaelic meaning “son of the priest” [5, P. 321], etc.

Only a minority of family names reveals Anglo-Saxon origin. This implies that their original native also appeared in Scotland early enough: V-VI centuries BC. They are as follows (Hew) Ainslie (1792-1878) > “meadow Ana” [5, P. 43]; (William) Wilson (1801-1860) > “son Vila(Willie)” or “desired son” [5, P. 499]; (Thomas) C. Latto (1818-1894) > Latton > “onion house” [5, P. 273]; (John) Patterson (1831-?) > “the son of a priest” [F, P. 348]; (Donald), Ramsay (1848-?) > “bird cherry island” [5, P. 376]; (James D.) Law (1865-?) > “a mound, hill, burial mound” [5, P. 273], etc.

The names/middle names which date back to French basics are much fewer. Most likely, their origin is not French, but Norman. The speakers of these family names, apparently, appeared on the British Isles as the part of the troops of William I the Conqueror (William I the Conqueror, 1066), or as part of the of emigration resulted after that invasion. Among the similar names (John) Lyon > Lion (1803-1889), “lion” [5, P. 290], (William) Lyle (1822-?) > Lile, “a resident of the island” [5, P. 282], and some others.

Among the names of Scottish-American poets of the XIX^th century there are names of mixed type when the same person has one of the family names  Celtic, the other Anglo-Saxon. This means that the ancestors of that person emigrated to Britain  by historically different temporal  streams, but with the flow of time they mixed. For example, the poet Donald Craig McCallum’s  (1815-1878) middle name is English (Craig > “rock”, “cliff” [5, P. 132]), and the family name is Celtic (Callum > O Callan, Irish “descendant of the mighty warrior” [5, P. 102]). It is significant to notice that the middle name is not of  Anglo-Saxon origin, it is  middle English. However, family name, and, therefore, chronologically the first emigrant to Scotland was not the Anglo-Saxon ancestor but Irish-Scott  of IV-VI centuries BC.

Conclusion

What conclusions can be traced out of  the genealogical and etymological analysis of the names of the Scottish-American poets of the studied period?

This analysis shows that the patrimonial memory of their Scottish ancestors could be of fifteen hundred years extent. This, in turn, suggests that hypothetically Scottish-American poets (or their families) could remember the folklore of the Scottish poetry (especially songs and ballads), which were composed orally both in the Celtic language – Gaelic and the German language – Scots. They can also keep in memory a huge array of ritual magic poetry (divination, oaths, conspiracies, etc.), only a small part of which was found by modern scholars [7]. This is exactly what happened to the magic folklore of all European peoples.  Finally, the patrimonial memory of these poets could transmit stories and tales from generation to generation in oral form, which has served as an unwritten history of the people for centuries.

 Therefore, no matter how remote, outlying were the places from which families of Scottish-American poets came, potentially each family had a huge mythopoetic, genre, and stylistic resource of folklore (and even different variants  of its national traditions: Irish, Scottish-Scots, Welsh,  Anglo-Saxon, Norman.  Behind them, further, stood that Semi-folklore literary tradition (such as R. Burns and his followers), which was formed in Scotland in the XVII-XVIII^th centuries  and was known by heart, verbally even to Scots, far from book education, was their unwritten heritage as well .