‘A drunk, misogynistic, racist philanderer’.
That’s how leading historian Michael Fry recently described the beloved Bard. He said first minister Alex Salmond was ‘misguided’ in counting on the 250th anniversary of Burn’s birth to attract thousands of Scots descendants and ex-pats back to Scotland for a series of high-profile events (known as The Year of the Homecoming).
Said Fry ‘In this 250th anniversary year….there are several ways we might take a lead from him. We could repeatedly get drunk..lay one woman after another following discussion of their respective merits in dirty talk with our drouthie cronies…
We may well ask whether Burns really is a suitable figurehead for modern Scotland. He fathered 12 children by 4 women and regaled his friends in graphic detail about his conquests. His numerous affairs while married to Jean Armour provoked public condemnation by his parish kirk.
And we might question more than the drunken, adulterous misogyny. Prior to the publication of the Kilmarnock Edition which transformed his career prospects he was all set to work on a Scottish-owned plantation which exploited black slave labour.
Says Fry ‘By all means let us celebrate the poetry…but let us deal honestly with the man who wrote that poetry’.
Can we Do Better?
Fry thinks we can do a lot better. He claims there are more heroic figures such as William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and Bonnie Prince Charlie who would not put a proud country’s image in such jeopardy. As a wry aside, however, he does concede that Burns does epitomise the Scottish love of failure, as best represented by our modern football team!
