Imagining Scotland: Tourist images of Scotland, 1770-1914.

摘要

This examination of tourism in Scotland focuses on the evolution of the tourist image of that country, an image which is still prevalent today. Although Scotland was virtually ignored in the early eighteenth century, a widespread fascination with "North Britain" developed later in the century. Under the influence of Romanticism, Scotland came to be seen not as a harsh and unattractive land, but as a mysterious and alluring country, with a unique culture. Scotland possessed a wild and untouched landscape, an appealingly "primitive" culture, and seemed not to be cut off from the past, as so much of the modern world was.; This cult of Scotland developed just as tourism became a feasible leisure activity for most of the middle class. Scotland quickly became a popular destination for Victorian tourists. Thus the accepted idea of Scotland grew out of tourist propaganda, and was then reduced to a series of cliches. This dissertation explores the reasons for the popularity of Scotland, and the effects of her image upon both Scottish and foreign attitudes towards the country.; After providing a chronological framework of tourism in Scotland, including an assessment of transportation and accommodation facilities, this dissertation traces the development of this concept among English tourists. The effects of literature and art upon Scotland's image are examined, most importantly the influences of Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and J. M. W. Turner. Then the tourist impressions of nature in Scotland and of Scottish history are analyzed. Most tourists travelled north with preconceived notions of what they would find, and those expectations were usually met. Because the majority of visitors sought in Scotland a release from the industrialization, urbanization, and perceived "monotony" of late eighteenth and nineteenth century England, their expectations reveal not only their vision of Scotland, but insights into their opinions of their own society.; It was also in the eighteenth century that Scottish nationalism, which had lost its primary means of definition with the 1707 Act of Union, began to find a new focus in a revived and transformed Scottish culture. Many Scots promoted a similar image as that held by tourists, as a means of creating a Scottish national identity. It was an appealing and popular image, but it was a picture of a Scotland which did not exist in the nineteenth century, indeed may never have existed. Yet the very popularity of the cult of Scotland tied that country to a fixed and static image, making it difficult to come to terms with Scottish modernity.