James Hogg Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Describe the process of this text’s publication

originally a letter featured in Blackwoods journal in August 1823 titled ‘A Scots Mummy’ ab digging up and exhuming preserved corpse of suicide signed from the Ettrick Shepherd

Advertised in 1824 as ‘The Private Memoirs’ - letter reproduced in second editorial narrative in abridged form. Editor notes the original title for Wringhim’s text was ‘A Self Justified Sinner’ but changed back to the title used at request of editors

Reprinted 1828 as ‘The Suicide’s Grave’, 1837 ‘Confessions of a Fanatic’, 1895 ‘The Suicide’s Grave’

What does Walker say about this complicated publication history suggests of the identity of the text

2007 - “profoundly plastic text”

tensions between Justified sinner, Self-justified sinner, fanatic and then focus on suicide = various interp positions.

both DQ and Hogg try and play on notions of their texts as accidental compositions - more genuine portrayals of self?

WHat was Hogg’s relationship with the editors of Blackwoods, a popular literary magazine based in Edinburgh - JOhn Wilson and JOhn Lockhart

originally friendship but in 1820s they started to reject his submissions and forged his names on stuff he hadnt written, using him falsely as a mouthpiece.

Hogg originally contributed to work Noctes AMbrosianae with John WIlson but by 1823 Wilson mainly took it over and represented Hogg as a drunkard-shepherd personage - cultural myth of ‘Ettrick Shepherd’

When The Ettrick Shepherd appears in the narrative what is significant about his presentation

Speaks in strogly dialectal language, indicated by orthographical differences - referring to selling “paulies” and buying “yowes” - scottish language for sheep. genuine rustic antiliterary shepherd figure - reclaiming from Blackwoods literati?

division between editor figure and this shepherd figure

name some other figures and episodes in which Hogg uses orthographical difference and consonantal dropping to represent - is this representing their class or their national status as scottish

John Barnet - “I never had muckle mense o’ them sin’ ye entered the door”

Bessy Gillies

RW tols the story of the town of Autermuchty

BUT there is clear divide between elevated, polite, aligning to grammatical and orthographical prescriptions used in langauge of other chaacters and fact that most of story takes place in metropolis.

McCracken-Flesher - Hogg’s portrayals of scottishness

2012 - “implies no alignment between varieties of Scottishness”

How does the editor show his failings at the start of the second narrative?

“What can this work be? … an allegory … a religious parable … I cannot tell.”

How does Robert Wringhim describe his isolation at the beginning of his narrative

“I was born an outcast in the world, in which I was destined to act so conspicuous a part”

How does Robert describe his sense of his own humanness at the end of the novel, showing that his acquisition of the Dalcastle estate has not helped with his selfhood

“liker to a vision than a human being”

What is the result of Robert’s paternal rejection on his relationship with the church at his birth - lINK TO DQ, fear of inner and essential alterity

“an alien from the visible church”

WHat does Walker suggest about the inherent dualism suggest by René Descartes’ assertion of a unified self in his Discourse on Method 1637 and Meditations on First Philsophy 1641?

2007 - “To speak the self is to objectify and split the self”

How is george described during the tennis match - also signif of boys meeting over a tennis match - sense of pairs

“the hero”

What does Sedgwick suggest shows George’s successful naviagtion of the homosocial

1985 - socialising with male friends - popularity, sharing women in visit to bagnio - RW in contrast struggles to triangulate his desire in a patriarchal society, feminising himself as an abject figure.

What does Sedgewick suggest of the fact Robert recieves a bloody nose during the tussle with George - a fact he is unrepenttant about and that the other boys find disgusting about him

1985 - “a specifically female powerlessness” - often occurs at moments of sexual violence in texts of 18th century.

How are Robert Wringhim and Gil-Martin revealed as doubles of eachother, suggesting Roberts uncertainty of himself.

“as far as recollection could serve me from viewing my own features in a glass, the features too were the very same”

How does Gil-Martin describe Robert’s duty under their “bond of blood”

“thou art called to a high vocation; to cleanse the sanctuary of thy God in thy native land by the shedding of blood”

How does Robert show his insight into the problematic relationship he has with Gil-Martin - PARALLEL DQ FEAR OF THE CROCODILE

notion of delight = sadomasochism

“I felt as one round whose body a deadly snake is twisted … exulting delight”

WHat does Robert say he conceives himself to be - duality

“I generally conceived myself to be two people. When I lay in bed, I deemed there were two of us in it”

When does Robert lose the concept of time

confronted by an angry mother when he gains possession of the Dalcastle estates - questions how he could have caused trouble when been there only briefly - she and GM confirm he has been there for an extended period.

How does Robert describe his desire to relinquish identity - LINK TO DQ NOTIONS OF SLEEP

“I desired to sleep; but it was for a deeper and longer sleep, than that in which the senses were nightly steeped”

Schmitt - what is the Gothic genre concerned by

1997 - “the riddle of its own identity”

What are the essential parts of Calvinism

predestination

limited atonement

total depravity

irresistability of grace

perseverance of saints

What creed of calvinism does Robert follow and what does this mean

Antinomianism - suggests that grace frees a certain elect few from obeying the laws of God

Why is the year of the brothers confrontation significant

Occurs during the 1704 Parliament in Edinburgh - years of religiou feuding between the Scottish EPiscopalians and Scottish Presbyterians coming to a head.

1703 - govt pass the ‘English Bill against Occasional Confirmity’ taking away citizenship rights of dissenters and assuring the supremacy of episcopalians

1703 Whig presbyterians counter with the Act of Security asserting need for protestant ruler descended from the House of Stuart

When was The Act of Union (uniting scotland and england into a single sovereign state)

1707