Tartanry

Not to be confused with Tartary.

Black and red line-art cartoon figure of a stereotypical tartan-wearing bagpiper
"Tartan", the stereotypical tartan-wearing piper caricature that is the mascot of Scotia-Glenville High School in Scotia, New York

Tartanry is the stereotypical or kitsch representation of traditional Scottish culture, particularly by the emergent Scottish tourism industry in the 18th and 19th centuries, and later by the American film industry.[1] The earliest use of the word "tartanry" itself has been traced to 1973.[2] The phenomenon was explored in Scotch Myths, a culturally influential exhibition devised by Barbara and Murray Grigor and Peter Rush, mounted at the Crawford Centre at the University of St Andrews in the Spring of 1981.[3] Related terms are tartanitis,[4][5][6] Highlandism,[4][7][8] Balmorality,[4] Sir Walter Scottishness,[9] tartanism,[10][11] tartan-tat,[12][13] and the tartan terror.[14]

  1. ^ Whelan, Greg (2015). Nearly Dark, Darkly Near: Telling tales – Storytelling in the Scottish oral tradition and the problems inherent in attempts to study, preserve or continue it: A suggested methodology for future interactions (PDF) (PHD). University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
  2. ^ "Tartanry has spread into radio, television, cabaret and clubs". (colour supplement). Sunday Times. 31 October 1973.
  3. ^ MacArthur, Colin (1982). Murray, Glen (ed.). "Breaking the Signs: 'Scotch Myths' as Cultural Struggle". Cencrastus (7): 21–25.
  4. ^ a b c Armstrong, Fiona Kathryne (31 August 2017). Highlandism: Its value to Scotland and how a queen and two aristocratic women promoted the phenomenon in the Victorian age (PhD). University of Strathclyde. pp. 1, 3–6, 12–13, 16, 58, 78, 84, 237, 258, 268–269, 274. doi:10.48730/2m47-md74. Retrieved 28 May 2023. The term "Balmorality" is attributed to: Scott-Moncrieff, George (1932). "Balmorality". In Thomson, D. C. (ed.). Scotland in Quest of Her Youth. London: Oliver & Boyd. pp. 69–86. The term "tartanitis" is attributed to: Brown, Ivor J. C. (1955). Balmoral: The History of a Home. London: Collins. pp. 17–18. The term "tartan monster" is attributed to: Nairn, Tom (2003) [1977]. The Break-up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism (3 ed.). Champaign, Illinois: Common Ground. pp. 104, 150. The McCrone quote is cited to: McCrone, David (1992). Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Stateless Nation. London: Routledge. p. 180.
  5. ^ Longford, Elizabeth (2011) [1964]. Victoria. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 255.
  6. ^ Martin, Richard (16–18 September 1988). "Tansmutations of the Tartan: Attributed Meanings to Tartan Design". Textiles as Primary Sources: Proceedings. First Textile Society of America Symposium. Textile Society of America / Minneapolis Institute of Art. p. 58. No. 646. Archived from the original on 19 May 2022. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  7. ^ Tuckett, Sally (2016). "Reassessing the romance: Tartan as a popular commodity, c.1770–1830" (PDF). Scottish Historical Review. 95 (2): 2. doi:10.3366/shr.2016.0295. Citing the following: Dziennik, Matthew (2012). "Whig tartan: Material culture and its use in the Scottish Highlands, 1746–1815". Past and Present (217): 117–147. doi:10.1093/pastj/gts025.
  8. ^ Porter, James (1998). "The Folklore of Northern Scotland: Five Discourses on Cultural Representation". Folklore. 109 (1–2). Taylor & Francis: 1–14. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1998.9715956.
  9. ^ Mulholland, Neil (2016) [2003]. The Cultural Devolution: Art in Britain in the Late Twentieth Century. London & New York: Routledge. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-7546-0392-4.
  10. ^ Brown, Ian (2012). "Introduction: Tartan, Tartanry and Hybridity". From Tartan to Tartany: Scottish Culture, History and Myth. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-7486-6464-1.
  11. ^ McKay, Ian (1992). "Tartanism Triumphant: The Construction of Scottishness in Nova Scotia, 1933–1954". Acadiensis. 2 (22): 6.
  12. ^ Armstrong (2017), pp. 12, 83, 95, 104, 237. Quotes early use of "tartan-tat" in: Brown, Ivor (1955), p. 18.
  13. ^ Newsome, Matthew Allan C. (2008). "Purveyors of 'Tartan Tat' Taken to Task". Albanach.org. Retrieved 14 July 2023. Originally published in The Scottish Banner, September 2008.
  14. ^ Fergusson of Kilkerran, James (1965). "Introduction". In Fontane, Theodor (ed.). Across the Tweed: A Tour of Mid-Victorian Scotland. Translated by Jolles, Charlotte. London: Phoenix House / J. M. Dent & Sons. p. xiv. Like the visitor of today Fontane [in 1859] ... tells of children selling souvenirs to the tourists in Iona, of English officers arriving in Inverness to go stalking, or of the Tartan Terror flourishing there in as full growth as today. He describes a shop in Inverness where tartan objects, 'from a heavy silk robe down to a cotton-reel or a penholder', might be bought in the tartan of 'every clan—there are over fifty of them'. The bulk of this book is an English translation of Fontane's Jenseits des Tweed: Bilder und Briefe aus Schottland ['Beyond the Tweed: Pictures and Letters from Scotland'], 1860.