ISBN : 9782296136298
ROBERT BURNS, STEPHEN FOSTER AND JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY: DECLARATIONS OF CULTURAL INDEPENDENCE
The pervasive influence of Robert Burns on nineteenth-century American culture has been convincingly demonstrated by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Many American and Canadian poets: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807- 1882), Walt Whitman (1819-1892) or Alexander McLachlan (1818- 1896), the "Canadian Burns", among many others, responded to Burns's verses and aspired to emulate the tenderness of their lyrical expression and the Scottish bard's passion for the common man. Scant attention has, however, been paid to the way certain songwriters and poets sought to meld a national American culture drawing on inspiration from Burns's eclectic approach to composition...