Burns Lecture in October

From Jennifer Cutting:

October 21, 2008, 12:00 noon * 1:00 pm
Whittall Pavilion, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building

Image of Robert Burns
A Bard of Nature's Making: Robert Burns and
Scottish Traditional Culture
presented by Valentina Bold, University of Glasgow

Valentina Bold will explore the ways in which Burns's work draws on,
and influences, the traditional culture of Scotland. Looking in
particular at his engagement with traditional songs and legends*from
*A Red Red Rose* to *Tam o Shanter,* Bold also considers the
impact of Burns's image as a self-styled *Bard of Nature's
Making* on later Scottish poets and songwriters. Bold will suggest
that the image of the *Heaven-taught ploughman**in itself drawing
on the work of earlier writers like Allan Ramsay and James Macpherson of
Ossian fame*played a hugely significant role in validating and
facilitating the work of other Scottish *peasant poets.* In
conclusion, the lecture will consider Burns*s impacts on other
Scottish bards *of Nature's making* including James Hogg (*the
Ettrick Shepherd*) and Allan Cunningham (*the Nithsdale Mason.*)

Valentina Bold is Head of Scottish Studies at the University of
Glasgow's Dumfries campus. Robert Burns spent his final years in
Dumfries, and Bold is part of the BARD team there (Burns Research in
Dumfries). She convenes the taught postgraduate M. Litt programme in
Robert Burns Studies, as well as the M.Litt in Scottish Cultural
Heritage. She is known for her work on Scottish poetry and song, and she
has a particular interest in the Scottish communities of the U.S. and
Canada. Bold*s publications include James Hogg: A Bard of Nature*s
Making and Smeddum: A Lewis Grassic Gibbon Anthology, as well as the
CD-ROM Northern Folk: Living Traditions of North East Scotland. She is
currently working on a new edition of Burns's Merry Muses of
Caledonia, to be published in late 2008.