Edinburgh and After: Burns’ Conscious Collecting of Folksongs

Abstract

Burns went to Edinburgh late in 1786 to arrange for a new edition of his poems and songs. The traditional base of much of his work had caught the attention of a group of implicit nationalists interested in persisting evidences of a distinctly Scottish cultural tradition, which they saw not only in the works of Burns but also in the Ossianic poems and in traditional balladry and song. The inspiration for this nationalism was largely backward-looking and antiquarian and was the result of Scotland’s eighteenth-century identity crisis: in 1603 James VI of Scotland had become James I of England, uniting the crowns of the two nations; that union had been further cemented in 1707 with the union of the parliaments, conclusively marking the end of Scotland as an independent nation. The Jacobite Risings, Highland-inspired, of the first half of the eighteenth century failed to restore Scotland to separate status. Thus a return to political independence seemed impossible and, in fact, was not favoured by everyone. However, a movement did develop to preserve Scottish cultural identity. The cultural nationalists looked to the past and to the countryside; their interest was antiquarian and pastoral. They greeted Burns as a rustic voice of Scotland and happily supported his Edinburgh edition.

I am engaged in assisting an honest Scots Enthusiast, a friend of mine, who is an Engraver, and has taken it into his head to publish a collection of all our songs set to music, of which the words and music are done by Scotsmen. —This, you will easily guess, is an undertaking exactly to my taste. — I have collected, begg’d, borrow’d and stolen all the songs I could meet with.

Ferguson, Letters, 1:179 no. 193