Performing Robert Burns: Enactments and Representations of the 'National Bard' - Paperback

by Ian Brown (Editor), Gerard Carruthers (Editor)

This book is unashamedly aimed at a wider market than the ordinary academic volume, as it seeks to extend the impact of the research it contains, making it available to the worldwide community of Burns enthusiasts, without compromising on scholarship.

Contributors have been selected not only for their academic rigour and reputation, but also because of their ability to handle their material with elegance and accessibility for the general reader. They offer fresh insights for both academic and general readers, not least through the volume's interdisciplinary approaches, including a contribution from the great interpreter of Burns's songs, Sheena Wellington.

A key part of this volume's attraction lies in the way it opens up fresh issues and aspects of performance and performativity and their impact on our perception of Robert Burns and his work.

Back Jacket

'This book is a reminder that experiencing Burns has always been as much a voice or an event as pages in a book. In our time, as in his own, Burns is encountered as recitation, on stage and screen, in speeches, preeminently as song, and in the drama and debates surrounding new discoveries and new editions. Contributors to this imaginative new interdisciplinary collection bridge the divide between performers and scholars, with readable but authoritative short essays that will spark interest in all Burnsians and open up new directions for Burns research.' Patrick Scott, University of South Carolina Examines representations of Robert Burns and his work in a wide range of performance modes This book opens up fresh aspects of performance and performativity and their impact on our perception of Robert Burns and his work. Bringing together leading experts on music, song, drama, public ceremonial and literature, it studies Burns as a performed and performative construct. It explores ways in which he is encountered as a living author, setting the popularity of his poetry and songs in the context of his representation in popular culture. Ian Brown is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Scottish Literature at Glasgow University and Professor Emeritus in Drama at Kingston University. Gerard Carruthers FRSE is Francis Hutcheson Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. Cover image: www.iangeorgesonphotography.co.uk Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-5714-9 Barcode

Author Biography

Ian Brown is Emeritus Professor in Drama at Kingston University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Scottish Literature at Glasgow University. He is the General Editor of The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature (EUP: 2007) and widely published on aspects of theatre and literature. He is also a playwright and poet.

Gerard Carruthers FRSE is Francis Hutcheson Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, General Editor of the multi-volume OUP edition of Robert Burns's collected works and Principal Investigator of the related AHRC project, 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century: Correspondence and Poetry'. He is Convenor of Burns Scotland partnership, the 'National Burns' collection involving national and local authority institutions Scotland-wide.