THE POETRY OF THE SCOTTISH EMIGRANTS OF THE USA OF THE XIXth CENTURY IN REALIAS AND MOTIFS

Scottish emigration to different continents spans centuries and hundreds of thousands of people. One of the largest and longest was the emigration to the North American continent. In addition to political, religious, and economic emigration, there was a literary emigration in the XIXth century represented by a cluster of talented poets. 

The XIXth century Scottish poetic emigrational discourse is a complex supertext, the landscape being one of its many components. Among the main elements of the landscape are realias. It is through realias that the landscape becomes historically, ethnically and socially recognizable and memorable. In the context of Scottish emigration discourse, it is also important to turn realities into symbols, actualizing certain motifs.

The aim of the study is to identify the features of transformation of Scottish realities into symbols in the context of actualized motifs of displacement. Tasks of the study:

1) to identify the main types of realities with emblematic load;

2) to analyze the artistic features of the transformation of realities into symbols;

3) to determine the main ways of realization of the motif of displacement.

Due to the variety of definitions of key terms, there is a necessity to clarify their meaning. The motif can be introduced by

1) any element of the text,

2) both meaningful,

3) and formal,

4) whose place in the structure is refrained,

5) and the semantics is not set statically and in advance, developing as the given text unfolds [2].

Realias denote objects or phenomena of material culture, ethno-national characteristics, customs, rituals, as well as historical facts or processes that usually do not have lexical equivalents in other languages [3, P. 985].  Discourse is an ideologically formed speech activity of a linguistic personality. The result of such activity is a text or a set of texts, taking into account their communicative and extralinguistic characteristics [1, P. 31].

The following research methods were used in the work: historical and biographical, comparative-historical, real commentary (thesaurus), as well as elements of statistical analysis.

As a result of the analysis of poetic texts, it was found that emblematically loaded may be realias-micro-toponyms of the Scottish homeland (historical and biographical). Among the most common should be mentioned

1) the place of birth (village, city, country), as well as the places author’s/lyric hero’s childhood or youth (The Woods o' Clova (The Woods o’ Clova, J.D. Law [6, P. 184-186]), Raglin Bridge (Auld Ruglin Brig, D. Ramsay [8, P. 202-203]), Alloway Temple (Auld Kirk Alloway, M. Taylor [8, P. 150-151]), Perth Hill (The Inch o’ Perth, P. Ross [7, P. 93]), etc.);

2) places of historical events (battles) (Culloden (Dark Culloden Day, P. MacPherson [7, P. 36-39]), Bannockburn (Scotland Forever, W. Anderson [7, P.360-361]), Largs and Stirling (There's nae land like old Scotland, W. Anderson [7, P. 354-355]), etc.);

3) places most frequently mentioned in literary texts (Loch na Gar (Americanized Scot, or Jem Wilson and the Queen, J. Kennedy [10, P. 147-150])). Loch na Gair is an allusion to J. G. Byron's poem "Lachin y Gair" [9, P. 391].

Homeland as a magic land. The motif, which is always relevant in the memory of the lyrical hero, becomes the motif of the Motherland. And the Motherland itself often turns into a special place, a "magic place": a "magic garden", a "magic house/castle", a "magic mountain" or a "magic meadow". Due to this perspective of the author’s vision, the names of these forests, fields, meadows, mountains, castles first become symbols. And then the symbol, acquiring a stable associative meaning, is transformed into a myth.

The transition to this "magic" place ("magic garden", "magic house/castle", "magic mountain" or "magic meadow") is carried out due to a displacement, which occurs most often in a dream. There are three possible variants of such displacement:

1) this "magic", "fairy-tale" dream is introduced by the author directly (it then becomes part of the lyrical plot);

2) it can be described as a dream or

3) it can present in the poetic text as a cherished dream

The dream/dreaming motif. The most common way by which the lyrical hero (and the author himself) can be in his homeland (Scotland) is the dream state. It is through sleep as a dream that the lyrical hero is transported to Scotland, to his native land, his home, his memories of childhood and youth: "<...> Yet dearer memories fondly forth / Come linked with Noran’s crystal stream, / That, bright as in its native North, /  Oft sparkles in my fancy’s dream. <...>" [10, P. 44].

This kind of magical journeys was often carried out by the lyrical hero with the help of poetic magic power. It actualizes another motif – the motif of wandering, of traveling to another world (including the afterlife). This motif is realized with the help of a "narrative" (told) journey into that, other, world: "<...> For all youth's fairy scenes and glee, / Loves, hopes and fancies fain, / In Poesy's art illuminated by thee, / Come back to us again. <...>" [10, P. 67].

Sometimes the dream/dreaming motif, which mediates the journey to the homeland, becomes shorter: the dream/dreaming immediately turns into Paradise, where the author goes. Such texts clarify the understanding of the homeland as Paradise, of the past (childhood and youth) as a paradisiacal stay and existence.

At the same time, all members of this sequence can expand and attract intermediate links into the formed sequence. Home is, more often, not only a physical object, but also parents, brothers and sisters for the Scottish poet-emigrant. School, for example, is closely related to the school teachers and comrades who are alive in the memory of the poets. The city (village) in which the author spent his childhood, in the associative chain also consists of fellow countrymen (comrades, neighbors). And nature consists of native hills, meadows, forests, native plants and native animals: "<…> When I think on the nights that we spent hand in hand, / When love was our solder, an’ friendship our band, / This warld gets dark – but ilk night has a daw’, / An’ I yet may rejoice wi’ the lads far awa" [4, P. 46].

The dream/dreaming motif is complicated to the greatest extent by compositional means. In H. Ainslie’s poem "Lads Far Away", for example, the first lines look simple and clear in folklore. The lyrical hero begins with memories of his distant homeland, the country he left (the land far awa’). In the context of the Scottish emigrational discourse, it is obvious that the country is Scotland (although the lyrical hero does not name it). It is Scotland that the hero dreams of in emigration. This creates a spatial image, which in the next stanza is transformed into a temporal image. Now it is the Motherland – the country where he spent his childhood and adolescent years, the time of his first love and school friendship: "When I think on the lads, an’  the land I hae left, / An’ how love has been lifted, an’ friendship been reft, / How the hinny o’ hope has been gumbl’d wi’ ga’, / Then I lang for the lan’ an’ the lads far awa <…>" [4, P. 46].

In the following stanzas, time and space also continue to undergo changes. There is a narrowing: time and space depict a feast, a walk, a meeting with relatives, friends, lovers.  But there is also an expansion of time and space of the poetic text, they become more universal: "Land Far Away" is now a chronotope associated with warmth, kindness, light, eternal love and joy. It is a chronotope, which in the text turns into the Paradise chronotope: "<…> When I think of the nights that we spent hand in hand, / When love was our solder, an’ friendship our band, / This warld gets dark – but ilk night has a daw’, / An’ I yet may rejoice wi’ far awa" [4, P. 46].

A similar transformation occurs in the poetic texts of other authors, when home (in the Scottish homeland) is transformed into Paradise (Scotland as Paradise): "Oh; Scotia, the land never trod by a slave, / Made free by the blood of a martyr and yeoman <…>" [7, P. 360].

The most complex version of Paradise appears when this Paradise becomes "American", but at the same time the lyrical hero correlates his worldview with the Scottish one, the "Scottish fairy tale", the Scottish dream. There is an artistic layering of images: when those landscapes, those characters that the author meets in the United States, evoke in his memory memories of his homeland-Scotland: "<…> Ay fact, its sae – oor ain sweet flow’r. / The Scottish daisy – oh! what power / Is in this seeing  / That gars auld memories in a shower / Flood a’ my being! <…>" [5, P. 48].

The following conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of the poetic texts:

1. Scottish poets-emigrants develop a special attitude towards their former homeland-Scotland. It becomes a special, "magical" place and the realias related to these places become symbols. 

2.  Poets-emigrants turn to the motif of dream/dreaming about the homeland to realize the transition to this "magical" place. The motif is implemented through a "fabulous" magical journey to that "magical" world.

3. Emigration becomes the resonator that intensifies the meaning of landscape realias-symbols, turning Scotland, the country where the emigrant poets come from, into a country that for them in memory becomes Paradise lost and regained now in the United States. 

4. Realias, symbols and motifs, determined by emigration discourse, need a more detailed poetological analysis, which constitutes the prospect of further research.