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Engraving by Henry Robinson after Alexander Naysmith, 1876-77. Courtesy The Walter Scott Digital Archive, Edinburgh University Library.

Few poets anywhere in the world can have acquired such unchallengeable status as national icons as Robert Burns: even readers who know nothing else about Scottish literature, or about Scotland at all, know that Burns is Scotland's national poet. Given the fact, as it incontrovertibly is, that Scotland in its long history has produced far more than a small country's fair share of gifted poets, the extent to which Burns has, in popular thought, dwarfed or …

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Citation: McClure, J. Derrick. "Robert Burns". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 October 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=659, accessed 29 March 2024.]

659 Robert Burns 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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