The project produced regular news updates over the course of its active research phase between August 2012 and July 2015. A transcript of these is recorded here. Please note that the project does not maintain the external websites that are mentioned in the news bulletins, and cannot guarantee that the links to them are still functioning.
24th June 2015 End of project conference announced - 'New Perspectives on Jacobean Scotland' Paul Goatman .
4th May 2015 Further project talks in summer 2015 Although the project formally ends on 31 July, the project team are still hard at work giving talks and disseminating information on the projects main findings.
10th March 2015 The Delitiae delights at StAnza The project team enjoyed a brilliant few days (4-8th March) in St Andrews at the International Poetry Festival, StAnza. The festival itself was a great success for Eleanor Livingstone and her team at StAnza, with over 90 speakers, and many more sessions, readings, and cultural events throughout the town. After nearly 20 years of bringing the Muses to St Andrews, StAnza seems to get better every year - this year saw venue after venue sold out and bursting to capacity. The project was able to contribute to this inspiring festival, both with readings from the DPS by the team, and readings from the poetic paraphrases of our translations by poets - J.L Williams gave a mesmerising rendition of Andrew Melville's poem on the eclipse of the sun to a full-to-capacity audience at Parliament Hall. Her edition of the poem can be found here ; and her audio file, along with Rab Wilson`s excellent version of Robert Ayton's De Nuptiis St Mary`s College and St Leonard`s College respectively. David in medias res in the Council Chamber ; and on the panel at Sunday`s translation breakfast session (far left of panel) . However, it is particularly rewarding that, in the positive critical reaction StAnza received from the mainstream media, we were singled out for special mention in the festival review in the Scotsman by Susan Mansfield . Here's hoping that we can continue to support this excellent festival, and through them continue to entice the public with the delights of the Scottish Latin poets!
4th March 2015 Another poet released as part of the electronic critical edition of the Delitiae The project reaches a milestone today with the launch of a beta version of the critical edition of the poetry of Robert Ayton, which is now available here. Ayton and the three other poets currently available - Andrew Melville, Hercules Rollock, and James Halkerston - together comprise 170 pages of the 365 selected for the project, so almost half the material being translated is now accessible online. Excluding Melville, Ayton is also arguably the most well-known poet in the corpus selected for the project, and the only one to leave an extensive corpus of poetic material in English and Scots as well, so he should be of immense value to anyone wishing to do a comparative case-study of Scots-English and Latin poetics. As always, please do let us know about any errors, mistakes or omissions via the enquiries page.
2nd February 2015 Further project talks for early 2015 The project team are hard at work completing the translations of the 13 poets as the project enters its final six months, but are still active giving talks in various locations this Spring. here .
1st November 2014 First part of the electronic critical edition of the Delitiae launched Those of you who have been following the project's progress keenly will have noticed that beta versions of the first three of our thirteen poets - Andrew Melville, Hercules Rollock, and James Halkerston - have been soft launched on the Delitiae page of the project website . These texts are still undergoing minor changes and corrections following comments from users, so if you spot any typos or errors please contact us . This is the first phase of a stepped release of the poets onto the website - please check back regularly for new additions between now and May 2014, when we aim to have the text of all thirteen poets available and the full critical apparatus and search tools launched.
7th July 2014 Further project-related conference talks in 2014 Building on last academic session's wide range of talks, Steven will be giving further talks this summer and early autumn exploring the poets featured in the Delitiae and the text's place in the broader Latin culture of Scotland. Steven will be attending the fourteenth International Conference of Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature at Ruhr University Bochum from 28-31 July, where he will be presenting two papers - one on Tuesday 29 July giving an overview of the project's progress and initial findings to date, and another on Wednesday 30 July mapping print trends in early modern Scottish Latin Literature. The full conference programme can be found here . here .
1st July 2014 New book featuring project material published A new collection of essays edited by Steven Reid and Professor Roger Mason of the University of St Andrews, focusing on the Latin writings of Andrew Melville, has been published. The collection, entitled Andrew Melville (1545-1622): Writings, Reception and Reputation (Ashgate, 2014), features a series of chapters by the project team which draw on their translations of Melville for the project, including two by Steven on Melville's royal and anti-episcopal poetry, and one assessing Melville's technical proficiency as a Latin poet by David. The collection also features a bibliography of Melville's known writings to date, compiled by Steven. Full details can be found here .
2nd May 2014 2014 project conference announced Following on from our successful conference in 2013, the DPS team are excited to announce that this year's conference will be even bigger and better. We have brought together scholars from across Europe to present thirteen talks (fifty minutes each) on Latin Literature and Classical culture in Renaissance Scotland. The breadth and scale of the corpus of Scots neo-Latin is reflected in our talks, where philosophy, print culture, didactic poetry, oratory, lyric, epic, editorship, and biography make up some of the topics. The panel will present their talks over the four days of the Celtic Conference in Classics , held this year from the 25-28 June, at the University of Edinburgh. The team are particularly excited about this year's conference because the Celtic Conference in Classics is now one of the largest conferences in Classics in Northern Europe, and provides the DPS team, the panel speakers, and the participants who will come along to enjoy the talks, with the opportunity to see at close proximity the long tradition of classical Latin Literature of which Scots neo-Latin is part. flyer (PDF 435KB) for further details.this link .
1st March 2014 Blog highlighting Scottish Latin texts In conjunction with Steven's talk on Thursday 3rd April to the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society at the National Library of Scotland , Robert MacLean (Assistant Librarian at the University of Glasgow), has produced a fantastic image-laden blog looking at early examples of Latin books and texts by Scottish authors, which can be found here . Please do take a look, as many of the project authors are directly featured!
4th February 2014 PhD studentship opportunity at Glasgow in Scottish Latin announced The University of Glasgow's School of Humanities is pleased to announce a three-year PhD Studentship to begin 1 October 2014 in History and Classics with ties to the project, which will focus on any aspect of research into the role that Latin and the Classical past played in Scottish culture, broadly defined. The award covers Home/EU tuition fees and provides a maintenance award of £6,000 per annum for three years, with some research and training expenses and the opportunity to apply for work as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Applications for the studentship are due no later than Thursday 12 June 2014.here .
1st November 2013 Further DPS talks in Winter 2013 and Spring 2014 Adding to our talks in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the DPS team will also be presenting at several venues across Scotland and England between December 2013 and April 2014. Fuller details can be found for each talk by clicking on the relevant hyperlinks below. University of Aberdeen Centre for Early Modern Studies Seminar Series on 4th December 2013, and to the St Andrews Institute for Scottish Historical Research Seminar Series on Thursday 6 March 2014.here .Cambridge Society for neo-Latin Studies entitled 'Iuniperi gravis umbra: Virgil as Moderator of the Nation in the Pages of the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum'. An abstract can be found here .Edinburgh Bibliographical Society at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. Details of the venue and the Society's seminar series can be found here .
19th September 2013 Two new talks for 2013 After an exciting summer of conferences and events, the DPS team is pleased to announce a new set of talks this Autumn and Winter on the Delitiae and Latin Literature. Dr David McOmish will be giving a lecture on the 11th November to the Classical Association of Scotland (Glasgow and West) on the ways in which classical reception research from the project is being digitised. For the full programme of the Classical Assocation of Scotland's 2013-2014 session (including location and time of the talk), please email Dr McOmish (details on staff page).Here is a link to a CAS Newsletter with further details about the event (PDF 87KB)Scottish History at Edinburgh where you will find the full programme.
1st May 2013 Conference announcement The DPS team would like to draw your attention to a conference which will take place on June 22nd 2013 at the University of Glasgow. The conference is entitled 'Latin Literature and the Classical World in Early Modern Scotland' and provides an opportunity to listen to a broad range of work on Latin Literature in the Humanist period - including some research from the Delitiae Project itself (a very dramatic presentation of a Latin 'flyting' between two figures familiar to those who have been following our research on the DPS!). Here is a link to a flyer which provides some general details of the conference (PDF 713KB)And here is a link to the full conference programme (PDF 336KB)
13th March 2013 New feature Our latest feature introduces a new poet from the Delitiae: Hercules Rollock. Rollock is a markedly different type of poet to Andrew Melville. His influences are remarkably similar to Melville's (Virgil, Ovid, Horace), but there is a striking divergence in the manner in which Rollock interacts with them. The similarities and differences are best highlighted by direct comparision with Andrew Melville. To facilitate this, we have juxtaposed two elegiac dedicatory poems from each poet. As ever we would welcome any feedback. Just email the team should your critical muse inspire...
4th February 2013 First featured poem: Andrew Melville, Job 3 Our newest feature is a poem. The poem, Andrew Melville's paraphrase of Job 3 , was discussed in our last feature. Therefore, publication of this poem presents the reader with an opportunity to read through the text in detail, and at length, and discern some of the literary and cultural trends which last month's feature highlighted. It also represents the first opportunity to look at the format and style of the poems as they will appear in the final electronic version. As such, we would warmly welcome any queries or comments.
13th November 2012 Project produces first 'feature' article The DPS project team have produced their first feature article,
26th October 2012 Andrew Melville's poetry used in 'Vox Populi' lecture on referendum debate Steven Reid gave a lecture at the University of Glasgow on 16 October that used the poetry of Andrew Melville to explore attitudes in Jacobean Scotland to issues of union with England and popular sovereignty. The lecture, entitled 'What Andrew Melville really thought of James VI: Popular Sovereignty and the Role of the Magistrate in Early Jacobean Scotland', was part of the landmark 'Vox Populi' series hosted by the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies which offers a unique and timely perspective, as we head towards the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, on how the "voice of the people" has been heard in Scotland since medieval times. An article summarising the lecture was also printed in the Scotsman newspaper as part of a series of comments following the announcement the previous day of a 'single question' format for the referendum vote. The lecture focussed on several of Melville's works, including his 'Stephaniskion' ('The Small Crown', 1590), delivered at the coronation of James VI's bride Anna of Denmark, and his poems celebrating the Union of Crowns in 1603. The seminar was the first time that English translations of these poems have ever been delivered in public, and excerpts from them can be accessed in the podcast below. here to view the podcast of the lecture on the University of Glasgow's ITunes U page (includes both slides and audio, requires QuickTime). here for the Scotsman article. here. Learn more about the Vox Populi series
12th October 2012 Project website launched The website for the project Bridging the Continental Divide was launched in October 2012, and currently provides information on the project's aims, staff and ways to contact us. The electronic resource featuring translations and transcriptions of the poetry from the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum will launch later this year with the poems of Andrew Melville. The website is continually being updated with new features, so check back regularly!
1st August 2012 Bridging the Continental Divide - project launched! The Bridging the Continental Divide project, a major new research project looking at Latin culture in early modern Scotland, launched at the University of Glasgow today. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and based in Glasgow's School of Humanities, the project's main output is an electronic edition of a selection of poets from the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637), Scotland's largest anthology of neo-Latin poetry. The press release for the project launch can be found here and more information on the project can be found on our 'project ' page.
