John Skinner, born on 3 October 1721 and dead on 16 June 1807, lived through an age of political defeat, religious repression, agricultural change, intellectual expansion, and remarkable literary revival in Scotland. He is remembered above all as the author of “Tullochgorum,” the exuberant song that Robert Burns called “the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw.” Yet that deservedly famous lyric represents only one part…
“The difference between our two tracks of education, and ways of life, is entirely in your favour, and gives you the preference every manner of way.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Hymn Writers, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Anger, Sorrow
Robert Fergusson was born in Edinburgh on 5 September 1750 and died there on 16 October 1774, not yet twenty-five years old. His life was painfully short, financially unsettled, and shadowed at its end by severe mental illness, yet the poetry written during his few active years gave him a permanent place in Scottish literature. He was the most vivid poetic observer of eighteenth-century Edinburgh before Robert Burns,…
Neighbourhood:
Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Scottish Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Longing, Spirituality
