D unbar, W illiam

Abstract

A key figure in the canon of early Scottish literature, William Dunbar (c.1460–1513/30) is remarkable for his rhetorical virtuosity, and for the rich generic diversity of his poetic corpus. Dunbar locates himself within a vernacular literary tradition stemming from Chaucer, and his work had a significant impact on the poetry of sixteenth‐century Scotland. Identified as a graduate of St Andrews University, Dunbar was probably born around 1460; by 1504, he had become a priest. Between 1500 and 1513, he was a salaried member of King James IV's household, and his poetic career is bound up with the culture of the Scottish court. Accounts from the period following the death of James IV at the battle of Flodden in September 1513 are incomplete, but Dunbar's absence from the records after May of that year suggests that he was dead long before his talent was memorialized by his poetic successor David Lindsay, in 1530.