Robert Burns and Scottish Cultural Politics: The Bard of Contention (1914-2014)

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...