As Edinburgh prepares for its annual round of summer arts festivals, a new book examines the life and influences of the poet who made modern Scotland

"As for Scotland’s identity, if Scott-land is a sham country, so is the new-nationalist, Burns-burnished alternative, a nation forged of feel-hard-done-by Braveheart movies, Celtic lettering on tawdry signs and synthetic rage at ancient clearances. Mr Kelly mentions the vacuum at Scotland’s centre that the poet Edwin Muir alluded to 70 years ago. It still exists. But Muir, though he called Scott (and Burns) “sham bards of a sham nation”, also called Scott a genius. He was"

This was a good article until the last paragraph which I quote above. You couldn't resist your usual anti-Scottish bash. The wittering of an envious, chip on the shoulder Englishman about modern Scotland. England, a has been nation of losers at everything, peopled by thick inhabitants who have not yet come to terms with that.
"..a nation forged of feel-hard-done-by Braveheart movies..." If anyone feels hard done by today it seems to be the English who are never done complaining and whinging about Scotland. Every English publication, every day has some anti-Scottish article within. Although I accept that this means Scotland is important, it becomes wearing. Talk about being ungrateful. The English have been living off Scotland's Oil for the last 40 years and without a word of thanks. "... Celtic lettering on tawdry signs... " You don't even know what country you are moaning about. You have just described Ireland, not Scotland. Our signs are new and modern.

eibbar snrub

I entirely endorse your comments.I was just about to enter something similar when your comments came up. The article also displayed substantial historical ignorance.

As a New Zealander I can comment on this as a neutral, and I'm sorry, but Scotland in general does indeed come over as very much "chip on shoulder" nation...

The comments aren't helping. I have nothing against the Scots but comments like "Although I accept that this means Scotland is important..." (snigger) is classic inferiority complex material.

In betwixt the shortbread tins, the obligatory ceremonial skirt-wearing, the Glasgow "Big Man" and any amount of faux tradition - one thing is absolutely clear - without the Scots the British wouldn't have made very much and probably wouldn't have had an empire worthy of the name.
Personally, I loathe petty-fogging flagwavers and fancy dress wearers wherever they hail from - but modern Britain needs an economic history lesson. Not only did much of the brains for Britain's industrial might come from Scotland but a substantial proportion of the brawn too. Don't believe me? Well, do a bit research.
There is a modern myth doing the rounds that Britain's economic greatness up to 1911 emanated from somewhere mysterious in the Home Counties. It is only now that the Scottish economy and its resources are spent that it has begun to be seen more as a state-dependent liability than an asset. Ignorance isn't bliss.
The problem for Scotland is that like many engines of industrial growth and wealth creation it has seen too little benefit relative to its labours. The trickle down effect just didn't trickle enough and now the more affluent service-supported parts of the country are looking to the post-industrial Celtic fringe, Scotland primarily but Northern Ireland and Wales, too, as poor neighbours.
The country is real enough - an amalgam - like all countries. Scott on the other hand is fantasy based loosely on reality but there is as much authenticity in the crazy permutations of plaid as there is in men dancing around bashing sticks together with hankies on their heads and bells round their ankles. The same process of rapid industrialisation that encouraged the English to reinvent themselves is not dissimilar from Scott's rose-tinted glasses - it's just that it took a different form.

Talk about fishandchips on shoulders and anti-Sassenach raving. My Scots ancestors went off to India in 1750 to be soldiers and have become quite civilized.Let alone all those that made Canada what it is. A "wee bit hill and glen" with a great intelligent inventive people. Until the Royal Bank of Scotland!

Warming to the subject and some of my fellow bloggers.

Scotland badly needs to get rid of too much introspection, drop the politicians and hangers on who boil everything down to more nationalism of one shade or another.

A rising population would be a good first sign of progress being made!

Perspicacity - good word Economist peeps! New to me - I shall have to ask my better half how it pronounced. I do hope it is vaguely phonetic - it feels so nice on one's lips and tongue.

Richardlith
I'm well aware that The Economist employs many 'Scotsmen'. And I note that the Reviewer's name wasn't given. Scotland does seem to breed a low type of person who is willing to denigrate his own country in public for monetary or other gain.

I think in fact there is a two in three chance that this review was written by a Scot. The Economist is full of them.

DavidHutchison. Wherever your ancestors went they clearly didn't pick up any intelligence along the way.

BMSKiwi "Although I accept that this means Scotland is important..."; That was irony. Although being a Kiwi you wouldn't be aware of that, snigger, snigger, snigger.

I reject the claim that this is an anti-Scottish article, and I say that as a Scot. No, there are other faults, but bias is not chief among them.

Too often when reading The Economist, the final paragraph of an otherwise balanced and interesting article turns its back on what has gone before and instead offers cheap inaccurate summaries and provocative conclusions. Normally, I ignore this, but identity is an emotional subject... take "synthetic rage at ancient clearances" - try visiting Badbea in Caithness, the steeply sloping cliff Sutherland families were cleared to, so windy they had to tether their chickens, and see how synthetic your anger is. This is lazy journalism, trying to force retention in memory with crass simplifications.
House style. Undoubtedly it is so, infuriating it remains.

And without a byline, the reader cannot bring a judgement on the correspondent: the messenger affects the message and not knowing who is writing, and their backstory, you can never really be confident in the agenda or lack of one in the article. I don't doubt that all Economist writers think with one mind, always.

For my part, the essence of Scottish identity is a mordant black humour, a socialist tendency and a shameful habit of defining ourselves as not being people we are not.

Anyone who can get worked up over this should surely depopulate Scotland just a little bit more by means of Shanks´s pony....

@eibbar
The mote in your eye is obscuring most of the world.

Scotland, as indeed England and many others, is very much an imaginary country. To say so is not to attack it or its people but any mythical notions of unity, fed in no little part by the works of Walter Scott.

Deep fried mars bar and chips anyone?

This article needed and deserved a byline, so why is it anonymous?

But, did you like the book?

go eibbar go

The problem with Walter Scott's novels isn't shamness. It's that they're literally unreadable. Once you have reached page 200 and haven't moved on anywhere in the story (OK, page 20), you inevitably give up with a big sigh. Some of his poetry is quite good though, as well as being a bit shorter.

Scotland is by no means a sham nation. We have a proud and well understood identity that goes back a thousand years. Which is more than can be said for most countries.

And Robert Burns is a genius. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

The fact that Tony Blair was a Scott fan surely says it all.A pretentious.middle-class arsehole..
And you compare him favourably to Burns??

Eibbar Snrub: As an Irishman, can I ask you a favour not to insult my country with these jibes of yours. Many an Irishman lost his life struggling for independence. It's been a while since Scotland lost anyone for nationalism.

In all sincerity, you would do well to define what constitutes a country before launching these tirades. If it's oil, then the Artic Circle is a country. If it's an age old struggle against England, then Cornwall is a country. And if it's your own currency, then Disneyworld is a country.