Description
Robert Burns, the great Scottish poet, toast of countless convivial. 'Burns Nights' throughout the world, fathered not fewer than fourteen children, nine of them out of wedlock. He was, in fact, fascinated by love-making, both as a personal activity and as a poetic theme, and wrote, collected and adapted countless bawdy ballads for circulation among his friends for their private entertainment.
After his death a volume was printed containing a collection of such items, and for many years only one copy of it was known to re- main in being. Its existence was cloaked even from Burns enthusiasts. Only now, after some 170 years of bardolatry, nurtured in conceal- ment and misrepresentation, is it possible to draw aside the veil, as it were, and reveal to the world, naked and unashamed, the true Barns- the poet and the man.
The present book, therefore, is a sincere attempt to make known, in particular, that aspect of Burns which for most people has hitherto remained a mystery or a myth. Shakespeare, England's national Bard, has been labelled a henpeck, a homosexual, and a hoax-and still the whole reality remains to be established. The life of Scotland's Bard, Robert Burns, is comparatively an open book. If some part of it has remained closed to many, this has hitherto been due to prejudice, to prudery and to puritanism.
Here now are painted in fantastic and fascinating decail the gross pleasures and rude mirth of the country people of Burns's time. All the songs are fully introduced and explained, and THE MERRY MUSES will undoubtedly be a choice item on the bookshelves of purchasers.
