{"product_id":"the-bard-robert-burns-a-biography-9780691141718","title":"The Bard: Robert Burns, a Biography","description":"\u003cp\u003eNo writer is more charismatic than Robert Burns. Wonderfully readable, \u003ci\u003eThe Bard\u003c\/i\u003e catches Burns's energy, brilliance, and radicalism as never before. To his international admirers he was a genius, a hero, a warm-hearted friend; yet to the mother of one of his lovers he was a wastrel, to a fellow poet he was \"sprung . . . from raking of dung,\" and to his political enemies a \"traitor.\" Drawing on a surprising number of untapped sources--from rediscovered poetry by Burns to manuscript journals, correspondence, and oratory by his contemporaries--this new biography presents the remarkable life, loves, and struggles of the great poet. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Inspired by the American and French Revolutions and molded by the Scottish Enlightenment, Burns was in several senses the first of the major Romantics. With a poet's insight and a shrewd sense of human drama, Robert Crawford outlines how Burns combined a childhood steeped in the peasant song-culture of rural Scotland with a consummate linguistic artistry to become not only the world's most popular love poet but also the controversial master poet of modern democracy. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Written with accessible elan and nuanced attention to Burns's poems and letters, \u003ci\u003eThe Bard\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of an extraordinary man fighting to maintain a sly sense of integrity in the face of overwhelming pressures. This incisive biography startlingly demonstrates why the life and work of Scotland's greatest poet still compel the attention of the world a quarter of a millennium after his birth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert Crawford\u003c\/b\u003e is professor of modern Scottish literature at the University of St. Andrews. His many books include \u003ci\u003eScotland's Books: The Penguin History of Scottish Literature\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as the poetry collections \u003ci\u003eThe Tip of My Tongue\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eFull Volume\u003c\/i\u003e (both Cape).\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50844944793874,"sku":"9780691141718","price":38.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0c493511-3214-4c17-aedb-855a51ef5986.jpg?v=1737337156","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-bard-robert-burns-a-biography-9780691141718","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}