'One darling idol, fondly cherished by all true Highlanders': The Rational Supernatural – Anne Grant's Challenges to the Cultural Authority of Walter Scott.
This essay builds upon recent scholarship addressing the anthropological essays of Anne Macvicar Grant (1755–1838), particularly in relation to her Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland (1811). Permeating Grant's analysis of the supernatural in the text is the sense that she is...
| Publicado en: | Scottish Literary Review Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 53 - 76 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Association for Scottish Literary Studies
Spring/Summer2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=195361490&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 195361490 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 17565634 8ZN7 jtl: Scottish Literary Review issn: 17565634 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Spring/Summer2026 vid: 18 iid: 1 pid: 12655 pub: Association for Scottish Literary Studies artinfo: ui: 195361490 10.1353/slr.2026.a994245 ppf: 53 ppct: 23 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 361KB tig: atl: 'One darling idol, fondly cherished by all true Highlanders': The Rational Supernatural – Anne Grant's Challenges to the Cultural Authority of Walter Scott. aug: au: Sutton, Rob affil: Liverpool John Moores University, England su: Grant, Anne Scottish literature British literature Folklore Ethnology sug: subj: Grant, Anne Scottish literature British literature Folklore Ethnology keyword: 18th century 19th century Anne Grant Anne Grant of Laggan Anne Macvicar Grant Enlightenment folklore Gaelic identity Highlands second sight supernatural superstition Walter Scott ab: This essay builds upon recent scholarship addressing the anthropological essays of Anne Macvicar Grant (1755–1838), particularly in relation to her Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland (1811). Permeating Grant's analysis of the supernatural in the text is the sense that she is part of a peculiarly Highland strain of a cultural phenomenon. While the generic requirements of the Essays might encourage the assumption that it sits in Grant's oeuvre as her most determined attempt at an unbiased, scientific, anthropological work, in many regards it is the text that best displays her impassioned, rhetorical campaign for the preservation and perhaps the renaissance of Highland culture. Relating to this issue and responding to modern scholarship, this essay extrapolates upon the general and potentially misleading positioning of the Essays as a 'Scottish' anthropological text. By comparing Grant's attitude to the supernatural in the Essays with Walter Scott's (1771–1832) Anglocentric scepticism, discernible distinctions emerge between responses to tales of spectres in the polite, Enlightenment-inspired Anglophone regions of Scotland, and the treatment of such supernatural occurrences in the Gaelic-speaking areas of Scotland where Enlightenment discourse had not yet become all-prevailing. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Scottish Literary Review is the property of Association for Scottish Literary Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Scottish Literary Review holder: Association for Scottish Literary Studies dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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