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The inclusion of Neil Gunn, who wrote in a tongue historically alien to the Highlands, may surprise some readers. The aim is to connect his work in English with older lyrical and poetic traditions in Gaelic literature. His writing was almost wholly concerned with the history and culture of the Highlands. Like Sorley MacLean, some of his work dwells on the inescapable tragedy of the Highland clearances and their aftermath. It is also clear that the characters of many of Gunn’s novels are speaking Gaelic, even though their speech is recorded in English. Sometimes like Lewis Grassic Gibbon with Scots in a Scots Quair, Gunn attempts to represent its rhythms, vocabulary and idioms in his style. At other times, he discusses the distinct means of viewing, perceiving and understanding the world intrinsic to Gaelic, which its grammar allows, and indeed sometimes requires. Critics have claimed Gunn was influenced by Wordsworth, Joyce and Jung, but very few have analysed his work in the context of Gaelic literary tradition (Curtis 1995); the literature of his ancestors. Indeed, with some exceptions most critics of Scottish literature appear to inhabit different realms to critics of Scottish Gaelic literature. In this sense, the Highland / Lowland divide still seems to exist.