This article appears as part of the Herald Arts newsletter.

The row about the English curriculum for Scottish schools rumbles on.

Readers of The Herald will recall author James Robertson’s plea for generosity and latitude where consideration of the Scottish literary canon is concerned, specifically with regard to those novels which contain themes or elements considered problematic today.

His plea was not a reactionary one, rather it was inspired by a fear that literary craft, illuminating ideas and great storytelling may be lost in too strict an application of what we might call the ‘right to write’ principle.

There was more on this subject in letters from readers who took issue with the curriculum ‘refresh’ announced recently by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). In the eyes of some correspondents, this has downgraded and/or excised too many of the Holy Cows of Scottish Literature. In other words the stuff studied by your parents and your parents’ parents.

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Now comes Corey Gibson, a lecturer in 20th and 21st Century Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow’s School of Critical Studies who writes on the subject in The Herald’s Agenda section.

Mr Gibson was one of those consulted as part of the SQA refresh and is irked that most of the debate has been “refracted........

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