Abstract
The paper focuses on the generation of people who were born in the 1770s and witnessed a major, yet rapid, changes in Scottish culture. It is surprising how the Enlightenment co-existed with the new Romantic and Gothic trends for decades and this fusion inspired the most respected people in the world - even in distant places such as Russia and Northern America.
The paper explores how some of the "lighter" and "enlightened" themes were often replaced (or rather enhanced) by "darker" and "gothic" motives in a press, science, fiction, and arts. The most influential Scottish journals were founded during a glorious period of Scottish Enlightenment and still flourished in the late Georgian times, however, their style and diction altered because of the new Romantic influences - while the editorial boards didn't change as dramatically.
This particular generation was able to fuse Enlightenment and Romanticism and prove that these movements were not necessarily contradictory, but rather complementary. Sir Walter Scott and his works give us some prime examples of this fusion, his fiction fits the Romantic category better, however, his own mind was largely enlightened.
Francis Jeffrey is a lesser-known enlightened writer, who - as an editor of The Edinburgh Review - significantly shaped Scottish Romanticism. James Gillespie Graham designed both neoclassical and Gothic houses and was able to combine both trends very successfully too.
Dr. Andrew Ure was an enlightened man of science and a Romantic dreamer.
The paper would like to stress the importance of this 1770s generation, which truly built a foundation for a modern, present-day Scotland.