Robert Burns in Colonial Queensland
Sentiment, Scottishness and Universal Appeal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600004967Keywords:
Robert Burns (1759–96), anniversary celebrations, 'Year of Homecoming'Abstract
Worldwide, 25 January 2009 was celebrated as the 250th birthday of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–96). The anniversary celebrations will continue all through this year, however, as the Scottish Parliament has proclaimed – in recognition of Burns' powerfully unifying significance – that 2009 will be a ‘Year of Homecoming’ for all those Scots, or Scottish descendants, who compose the great intellectual, economic and social diaspora that has emanated from this tiny, harsh and indomitable country over the last 300 years.
References
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Buckridge and McKay, By the Book, 17, 144. See also Cecil Hadgraft, Queensland and Its Writers (Brisbane: Queensland University Press, 1959), 2–4; and H.A. Kellow, The Queensland Poets (London: Harrap, 1930), 18–24, 32–35. (Kellow was unaware of the true identity of ‘Ralph Delany,’ a fact later uncovered by Hadgraft.)
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The Poetical Works of William Burns of Maryborough, Queensland (Maryborough: W.S. Lambert, 1885), Dedication.
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‘Mary, Highland’ was the name Burns gave to Mary Campbell (1763–86), with whom he had a relationship after separating from his wife-to-be Jean Armour. The relationship was terminated by her sudden death following a fever, and she is the subject of several of his love lyrics, notably ‘The Highland Lassie, O’.
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For a full account of the Johnsonian Club in this period, see Leanne Day, 2003, ‘“;Those Ungodly Pressmen”: A Study of the Early Years of the Brisbane Johnsonian Club’, Australian Literary Studies 21.1 (2003): 92–102.
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