literary Influences
James Thompson
Robert Fergusson
Farming
The Freemasons
The Church
The Influences of Robert BurnsJames ThompsonIn Mason's Collection was the work of a poet from the Border country who had died only just over ten years before Robert was born. The son of the clergyman, James Thompson was sent to Edinburgh University for his education, from there he went to seek his fortune in London. In 1726 he published the first of four poems which were collected together as The Seasons. In the southern capital he enjoyed the life a successful poet should lead before his untimely death at the age of 48. He is honoured with an impressive memorial in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, and is perhaps remembered best today as the author of 'Rule Britannia'. In his own time, The Seasons not only heralded the Romantic Movement in poetry: it leapt over the language barrier in Scotland. |
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