James Hogg and the Authority of Tradition

Abstract

The nineteenth-century Scottish writer James Hogg (1770-1835) engaged with traditional forms of expression as part of his mission to represent subaltern Scottish experience rather than to be represented by the literati’s constructions of it. This essay addresses the various forms his mediation took: in his role as informant for Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802–1803), as deliberate re-writer of folk narratives in poetry and fiction, and as plainspoken advocate of Scottish culture. Throughout, Hogg insisted on narrative strategies anchored in community, drawing authority from living tradition rather than acquiescing to the prevalent view of tradition as a collection of fossilised relics. In doing so, he offered an alternative model to the antiquarian grand narrative.