Abstract: The study on the British literary history, dominated by the England academia, takes the unified “British literature” for granted, but ignores the existence of the independent Scottish literature before the Union of 1707, and tries to conceal the fact that the Scottish literature has never died out in the process of unification. In the framework of the “British literature”, the national identity expressed by the Scottish writers has been covered up by the concept of a unified “Britain”. The Scottish national symbols have been degraded to be some regional phenomena, and the traditional Scottish language has been replaced by English. As a result, it has become somewhat complicated and difficult to understand the Scottish literary history before the unification, and the national identity expressed in the Scottish literature thereafter. Thus, the revelation of Scottishness in the British literature is crucial for scholars to fully appreciate the Scottish literature.

Key words: British literature, Scottish history, tartanry, Scottish languages