Review Essay: Robert Burns in Global Culture (Bucknell UP, 2011) ed. Murray Pittock; James Hogg and the Literary Marketplace (Ashgate, 2009) ed. Sharon Alker and Holly Faith Nelson.

This review essay assesses current critical positions on Scottish literature through a comparison of two books. Robert Burns in Global Culture resituates Burns beyond national literature, exploring his poetry in a world literary context. James Hogg and the Literary Marketplace, on the other hand, establishes Hogg's importance to Scottish literary history. Oliver looks at what the editors and contributors reveal about the centrality of literary circulation to Scotland at a time of uncertainty about national identity. The subject texts are two key publications in Scottish literary studies and the contrbutors are leading scholars in their field.