Scottish poetics and literary criticism from James the sixth to Francis Jeffrey

Abstract

I have tried to present the substance and spirit of the writing done by Scotsmen in the field of poetics and literary criticism, from James the Sixth doom to Francis Jeffrey. In this body of material, as we have see, investigation of principles bulks larger than actual practice of criticism. Possibly it appears sophistical thus to segregate Scottish criticism from the English critical literature of which it is a part. Yet separate treatment may assist comprehension by its emphasis on certain pervading national characteristics: the flair for rationalization, the insistence on morality, and the passion for fundamentals. Francis Jeffrey- -is the chief practicing exponent in literary criticism of the Scottish aesthetical formulae of the eighteenth century, and no study of these formulae is complete which does not include him. In a fashion he completes the epoch, and with him we reach a natural halting-place.