Overview

Robert Burns is Scotland's best known and most influential poet; yet his political legacy also ranks amongst the most contentious. His ambiguous verse, oscillating between patriotic odes, egalitarian lines and royalist songs, lends itself to interpretations from across the political divide. Blending political history and literary studies, this book explores this contested legacy of 'Scotland's National Bard'. It follows the transformations of Burns's image throughout the late modern era, as revolutionaries, nationalists and avant-garde writers co-opted Burns's myth to subvert their country's social and constitutional order. From Great War unionism to 1940s socialism and contemporary nationalism, the examination of Burns's tempestuous afterlives sheds light on the ongoing Scottish question. Overall, it reminds us that poetry is a very shifting ground on which to build a national identity.

Full Product Details

9781399503457

Table of Contents

Reviews

"""Expert, sparky, and entertaining, Paul Malgrati's book will appeal to anyone interested in Robert Burns or in modern Scotland's history, culture and politics."" -Robert Crawford, University of St Andrews"

Author Information

Paul Malgrati is Post-Doctoral Research Assistant in Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of The Global Burns Supper: A Typology' in Burns Chronicle, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, September 2021; 'Joe Corrie's In Time o' Strife, the General Strike of 1926, and the Impasse of Insurgent Masculinity' in Studies in Scottish Literature 46/1, pp.46-57, 2020. [Available online] and 'Pit and Plough: Joe Corrie's Burns' in Burns Chronicle, Kilmarnock: Robert Burns World Federation, January, pp.62-69, 2020. This is his first book.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available