Restoring the Restoration: Thomas Sydserf's Life and Works (c.1624-89)

Thomas Sydserf (or St. Serfe) has been described as 'a one-man cultural movement'. In a 'culturally barren' midseventeenth-century Scotland, he produced: two translations from French; potentially the first-ever Scottish newspaper; an array of weird and wonderful pamphlets; and a play, which he staged at his Edinburgh playhouse (itself probably Scotland's first modern theatre). A staunch royalist, he also served under the famous Montrose. My PhD will provide the first summative study of Sydserf's entire oeuvre, assessing his place in Scottish literary history by asking why he wrote and what he imagined literature, in times of great upheaval, could do.