The Genius of Scotland

The Cultural Production of Robert Burns, 1785-1834
Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-90-04-29436-3
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 24, 290 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 363 g

Reihe: SCROLL: Scottish Cultural Review of Language and Literature

The Genius of Scotland: The Cultural Production of Robert Burns, 1785-1834 explores the wide-ranging reception history of Robert Burns by examining the sources of his reputation as the ‘Genius of Scotland’ in the Scottish Enlightenment and beyond. Evaluating his changing stature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the book investigates the figure of Burns as a ‘cultural production’ that was constructed by warring cultural forces in the literary marketplace. The critical promotion of Burns as the ‘Heaven-taught ploughman’ greatly influenced his legacy as a labouring-class ‘genius’ and national icon, both of which relied on blatant censorship and distortion of his biography and works. The Genius of Scotland debunks both the hagiographic and vituperative representations of the poet from this period, revealing not only how (and why) he was culturally produced as a national ‘genius’ but also how the process continues to influence our understanding of Burns into the present day.

Autoren/Hrsg.

E Andrews, Corey

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Lyrik und Dichter
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Rezeption, literarische Einflüsse und Beziehungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Genius of Scotland
Chapter One: Ploughman, Minstrel, Bard: Poetic Personæ and the rise of Genius Theory
Chapter Two: ‘Who are you Mr. Burns?’: Admirers and Sceptics of the ‘Heaven-taught Ploughman, 1786-1788’
Chapter Three: Ungrateful country! ill-requited Burns!’: The Decline and Fall of the Heaven-taught Ploughman’, 1788-1796
Chapter Four: ‘The Powers and Failings of Genius’: Constructing Burns’s Posthumous Reputation, 1796-1816
Chapter Five: ‘Great Shadow! Hide Thy face’: Scottish Poetry after Burns, 1797-1819
Conclusion: The ‘Only Worthy Successor’: The Career of James Hogg, 1801-1834
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Dr. Corey E. Andrews is Associate Professor of English at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio. He has published a number of articles and chapters on Robert Burns and Scottish poetry in The Edinburgh Companion to Robert Burns, Scottish Literary Review, Robert Burns and Friends, The International Journal of Scottish Literature, Studies in Hogg and His World, and The Burns Chronicle. His book Literary Nationalism in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Club Poetry appeared in 2004, and he has twice received the W. Ormiston Roy Memorial Fellowship at the University of South Carolina Libraries for his research on Burns’s reception history.