Sir Walter Scott, born in Edinburgh on 15 August 1771 and dead at Abbotsford on 21 September 1832, became one of the most influential writers in the English language: a poet who dominated the reading public before Byron, a novelist who effectively established the modern historical novel, an editor and antiquarian who preserved Scottish oral traditions, a lawyer and public official, a conservative political figure, an…
“But never a being, from my infancy upwards, hated task-work as I hate it; and yet I have done a great deal in my day.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Longing
Alexander Scott, born about 1525 and probably dead about 1584, occupies an intriguing place in the history of Scottish poetry: he is neither as monumental a figure as William Dunbar nor as internationally famous as Robert Burns, yet his surviving work gives him a distinctive and memorable voice among the later Scottish makars. He wrote at a moment when older medieval literary customs were being tested by religious re…
Neighbourhood:
Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
