In Robert Burns and the Sentimental Era, Carol McGuirk (xiii) tries to present an argument for Robert Burns as a great poet with a more profound talent than rendered by most of the sentimental era critics who found Burns limited in dialect and not “serious” enough to be taken too seriously as a great poet “critics tend to assume that Burns is ‘hardly worth the while’ of critical study. His poetry is too simple an unambiguous to need close textural analysis and too linked to a separate Scottish tradition to justify inclusion in general discussions of late eighteenth-century poetry.” However, as we shall see, despite Burns’ oft pointed out limitations, he deserves credit as a major poet because his work embodies the classic standard of universality.
The author details how to many, Burns’ work and persona were built on the narrow sympathies of a drunkard and reprobate (he was critical of Calvinist theology and fathered children to a woman before she was his wife). However, most of these individuals have missed the fact that despite Burns’ preoccupations with Scottish concerns, his poetry and songs have please many and pleased long because of the universal qualities found within them. In Burns’ work there is emotional transcendence, and the creation of a world that while distinctly Scottish is also one that is broadly human and accessible to all readers. It is these traits which make Burns’ work universal and at the same time the product of a classic and major poet. Yet, Burns’ critics continue to point out the poet’s limitations based on his preoccupation with the self, the separateness of the Scottish vernacular, and an misguided view that the sentimentality of Burns’ work is somehow linked only with the Scottish tradition. As McGuirk (xxvii) states:
To summarize briefly how I differ from other critics in my approach to Burns: the worst obstacle to a just assessment of Burns is the assumption of ...