Minor Modernisms: The Scottish Renaissance and the Translation of German-language Modernism

Lyall, Scott

Abstract

Germany has been epitomised in the twentieth century as Britain’s main rival and adversary. Yet Scottish modernists were influenced by Germany and German-language modernism to think more internationally about their nation and work, a cultural encounter that took place largely in and through translation. Willa and Edwin Muir, who in the early 1920s stayed at educational modernist A. S. Neill’s experimental school in Germany, translated German language modernists such as Kafka and Broch. Hugh MacDiarmid utilised translations of Nietzsche to inform his call for a renascent Scotland. Lewis Grassic Gibbon would write Sunset Song after reading Gustav Frenssen’s regional novel Jörn Uhl. Behind this lies the contention that the breakup of world empires, such as the British and Austro-Hungarian, occasioned minor modernisms (to adapt Deleuze and Guattari) such as that in Scotland, and that translation was central to the emergence, impact, and transnationality of the Scottish renaissance movement.

Citation

Lyall, S. (2019). Minor Modernisms: The Scottish Renaissance and the Translation of German-language Modernism. Modernist Cultures, 14(2), 213-235. https://doi.org/10.3366/mod.2019.0251

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 6, 2018
• Online Publication Date: May 16, 2019
• Publication Date: May 16, 2019
• Deposit Date: May 23, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: May 27, 2019
• Journal: Modernist Cultures
• Print ISSN: 2041-1022
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 213-235
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/mod.2019.0251
• Keywords: Scottish modernism; ‘minor’ literature; translation; Germany; Edwin Muir; Willa Muir; Hugh MacDiarmid; Lewis Grassic Gibbon; Nietzsche; Franz Kafka; Hermann Broch
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1822677