3 Review(s)

Concentrating on a handful of poems from Robert Burns' vast output, Tom Douglas has written this lucid critique describing the great man with refreshing clarity. Here is the irreverent Robbie, the humorous, roistering, loveable and loving, and ultimately distinguished character now evoked on Burns' Night throughout the world. Also discussed, and this is what makes the book memorable, are the disquietingly dark forces that made him the way he was. Burns' upbringing contained a strange mixture of strict Calvinism, Masonic ritual, and lively if terrifying folklore. The author shows how Burns hated the first and feared the last, despite his rational outlook. He was fed tales of 'brownies', kelpies' and 'spunkies' from an early age, and the Devil loomed large in many of these tales, just as it does in these poems analysed and strikingly illustrated in this volume. By revealing the inspiration for his 'demonic' poems, Tom Douglas manages to illuminate Burns' entire oeuvre.