ABSTRACT

Issues of national identity arising from the roles of Scotland and Ireland within an expanded British state are at the heart of a significant strand of the writing of the period, particularly of its prose fiction. This chapter focuses on some of the political, cultural and intellectual concerns raised by this writing. The Irish political agenda too shifted radically. If the status and function of Irish culture, whether ancient or modern, seemed both urgent and uncertain within the political cul-de-sac into which the nation had been driven, then the buoyancy of contemporary Scottish culture, by contrast, is all the more notable. Nevertheless Scottish intellectual and cultural life was charged with the expectation of imminent transformation of the whole political system, a source of both promise and anxiety. In the present political prospect of Ireland, the eye of philosophy and philanthropy turns on every side in search of a principle of regeneration, and turns in vain.