Publisher's Synopsis
Tracing Burns's creative journey from its first unselfconscious beginnings to the heights of "Tam o' Shanter" and "The Scots Musical Museum", this book sets the poet in his context as the heir of a literary tradition stretching from Dunbar and Henryson to Ramsay and Ferguson. It also illuminates the social setting of Calvinism and poverty in which Burns grew up in the west of Scotland.;The author's other books include "A Critical History of English Literature", "The Paradox of Scottish Culture", "Robert Burns and His World" and "Literature and Gentility in Scotland".
