Editing History of Scotland (section)

===Literary renaissance===
[[File:Lamb-Hugh MacDiarmid.jpg|thumb|right|upright|A bust of [[Hugh MacDiarmid]] sculpted by [[William Lamb (sculptor)|William Lamb]] in 1927]]

{{Main|Scottish Renaissance|Scottish literature}}
In the early 20th century there was a new surge of activity in Scottish literature, influenced by [[modernism]] and resurgent nationalism, known as the Scottish Renaissance.<ref name="VisitingArtsScotland">{{Citation |title=The Scottish 'Renaissance' and beyond |url=http://www.culturalprofiles.net/scotland/Directories/Scotland_Cultural_Profile/-5403.html |work=Visiting Arts: Scotland: Cultural Profile |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930034437/http://www.culturalprofiles.net/scotland/Directories/Scotland_Cultural_Profile/-5403.html |archive-date=30 September 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The leading figure in the movement was [[Hugh MacDiarmid]] (the pseudonym of Christopher Murray Grieve). MacDiarmid attempted to revive the Scots language as a medium for serious literature in poetic works including "[[A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle]]" (1936), developing a form of [[Synthetic Scots]] that combined different regional dialects and archaic terms.<ref name=VisitingArtsScotland/> Other writers that emerged in this period, and are often treated as part of the movement, include the poets [[Edwin Muir]] and [[William Soutar]], the novelists [[Neil Gunn]], [[George Blake (novelist)|George Blake]], [[Nan Shepherd]], [[A. J. Cronin]], [[Naomi Mitchison]], [[Eric Linklater]] and [[Lewis Grassic Gibbon]], and the playwright [[James Bridie]]. All were born within a fifteen-year period (1887 and 1901) and, although they cannot be described as members of a single school, they all pursued an exploration of identity, rejecting nostalgia and parochialism and engaging with social and political issues.<ref name=VisitingArtsScotland/>