Book description
Following the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns
(1759-96), Patrick Scott Hogg presents the greatest of Scotland's
poets within the true context of his times. Exploding the Burns myth,
Robert Burns: The Patriot Bard replaces the ram-stam lad of
popular cliché with the real, living Burns - a Scottish patriot of
the heart, an idealist who wished for 'Freedom and Liberty' for his
beloved country, but also a man who was pragmatically a British
patriot and risked his life for democratic reform. Here Burns is
painted in his native colours as a highly complex, hyper-intelligent
writer in both prose and poetry, not the semi-confused, contradictory
simpleton of previous biographies. The fascinating legend of Burns as
a ladies' man is placed where it should be - as less important than
the message of the bard.
The real day-to-day Burns was irascible, stubborn-minded,
independent, controversial and opinionated. He detested many of his
social superiors within the feudal order and attacked them as
hypocrites and oppressors of the common people. The voice of Burns,
always in the language of the people, and his idealist vision of a
better world endeared him as a poet of humanity 'the world o'er'.
Drawing from Burns' existing canon of poetry and letters, plus some
newly attributed works suppressed for over two centuries, this life
story is a roller-coaster narrative that charts the success and
untimely death of the greatest songwriter of all time, the real Robert Burns.
Patrick Scott Hogg is a leading Burns scholar and co-editor of a
recent complete works of Robert Burns. He lives in Cumbernauld.
