Tradition’s Use of Burns: The Legendary Tradition

Abstract

Burns’ own milieu was a traditional one: on the very personal level, he unconsciously accepted many of its practices and concerns; as an artist in words he drew from it in a multiplicity of ways; and as a collector of folksongs he recorded one aspect of that on-going oral tradition, folksongs, for posterity. As inheritor of a cultural tradition, he lived in large measure by it, taking from it, and giving back to it. Unwittingly, he also provided the ever-developing tradition with an immense body of additional material, for he became the central figure in a legendary tradition, which at different times has largely included three narrative genres — personal experience stories, legends, jokes and anecdotes — which reflect changing attitudes and perspectives towards Burns.KeywordsPrivate TutorOral TraditionGreat PoetNarrative GenreYoung FriendThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.