£1m windfall brings Robert Burns into the 21st century

Published on Sunday 20 February 2011 14:52

HE IS one of Scotland's most important and best-loved literary figures. But now the reputation of Robert Burns is set to be enshrined after funding was secured for the first complete scholarly edition of his works.

Experts described the 1 million grant to the University of Glasgow to produce a dozen volumes in the next 20 years as a "seismic shift" which will secure Burns's status alongside other Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and Keats.

Those involved with the project said it would be the defining collection for the next century for one of literature's most important figures.

The project, editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century, will involve a team of five literary scholars at Glasgow led by Dr Gerry Carruthers, a leading Burns expert.

Dr Carruthers said: "The funding along with the Oxford University Press contract marks a seismic shift in Burns studies.

"We now have the platform to assert Burns's status as a major Romantic-period artist alongside the likes of William Wordsworth and John Keats."

The team includes English literature Professors Nigel Leask and Murray Pittock, Professor Jeremy Smith, and senior lecturer Dr Kirsteen McCue.

Funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to the university's Centre for Robert Burns Studies, will cover the first five years, including the first volume on The Collected Prose of Robert Burns and The Oxford Handbook to Robert Burns.

Four volumes of Burns' songs will be among the first produced from the funding, two each from James Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum and George Thomson's Original Scottish Airs.

Prof Leask said it would be "of European and global significance".

Prof Leask will develop the prose edition, with the first volume to be ready for publication in autumn 2012.

He said: "This volume gathers together Burns's commonplace books, tour journals, prefaces, public correspondences and other short prose works for the first time in a fully edited collection.

"They offer a crucial insight into his meteoric poetic development as well as illuminating his social and cultural context in 18th century Scotland.

"The prose provides an incredibly important frame for how this Ayrshire farmer starts creating poetry and this movement into incredible creativity.

"This will last for the next century. I think it will be a major landmark."

The funding award follows the Oxford University Press (OUP) contract secured by the university in 2009 to produce the work.

The Glasgow-OUP edition will feature the Bard's prose works, his letters, poems, songs and other writings.

Discoveries include a previously unpublished letter - dated 13 May, 1789, and accompanied by an early draft of Rabbie's poem, On Seeing a Wounded Hare - was hailed as a "remarkable literary discovery".

The Glasgow University work will also contain letters written to Burns for the first time, building a picture of his creative process and the history of the period.Part of the AHRC money will fund two post doctorate researchers and support two three-year PhD students.

The award will also support public events hosted by the Centre for Robert Burns Studies.

It follows the launch of a free mobile phone application developed by the Scottish Government to give access to the complete works of the poet.