Abstract
Burns’ Edinburgh experience, especially his introduction to antiquarian and nationalistic concerns circulating there, definitely had artistic repercussions. This is particularly obvious in his song output, for after Edinburgh song — no doubt inspired by his collaborations with Johnson and Thomson — became his primary artistic mode.
Ev’n then a wish (I mind its power)
A wish, that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast;
That I for poor auld Scotland’s sake
Some useful plan, or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
‘The Answer’ to the Guidwife of Wauchope-House
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Chapter 3 the Antiquarian And Nationalistic Impulse: The Later Songs And Poems
See James C. Dick (ed.), The Songs of Robert Burns and Notes on Scottish Songs by Robert Burns (1903 and 1908; reprint ed., Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates, 1962 ).
James Kinsley (ed.), The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, 3 vols (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1968), 2: 541–2, no. 313 takes this as title and in subject matter deals with the battle.
David Herd, Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs, 2 vols (1776; reprint ed., Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1973), 2: 122–4.
Hans Hecht (ed.), Songs From David Herd’s Manuscripts (London: William Hodge & Company, 1950), pp. 183, 308.
John Ord, The Bothy Songs & Ballads of Aberdeen, Banff & Moray, Angus and the Mearns ( Edinburgh: John Donald, 1930 ), p. 215.
Gershon Legman (ed.), The Merry Muses of Caledonia, Collected and in Part Written by Robert Burns (New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1965), p. xxx.
Sydney Goodsir Smith, ‘Robert Burns and “The Merry Muses of Caledonia”’, Arena, 4 (1950): 4.
James Kinsley, ‘Burns & the Merry Muses’, Nottingham: Renaissance & Modern Studies (1964–7): 10.
Christina Keith, The Russet Coat (1956; reprint ed., New York: Haskell House, 1971 ), p. 143.
Frances Grose, Antiquities of Scotland, 2 vols (London: Hooper & Wigstead, 1797 ), 2: 199–201.
J. De Lancey Ferguson (ed.), The Letters of Robert Burns, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931), 2: 22–4. This is letter no. 401.
Reidar Th. Christiansen, The Migratory Legends (Helsinki: Folklore Fellows Communication no. 175, 1958 ), p. 61.
Katharine M. Briggs, A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales, 2 parts, 4 vols (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1971), A, 1: 70.
H. L. Gee, Folk Tales of Yorkshire (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1952), pp. 67–8. I am indebted to Katherine M. Briggs for this reference to Gee.
David Daiches, Robert Burns ( London: Andre Deutsch, 1966 ), p. 256.
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© 1984 Mary Ellen Brown
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Brown, M.E. (1984). The Antiquarian and Nationalistic Impulse: The Later Songs and Poems. In: Burns and Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07087-9_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07087-9_3
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