Alan Brown in the Sunday Times is not an admirer of Burns. He says there is little of consequence in either the life or the work of the man. He says he specialised in doggerel that bordered on unreadability; his work could not be argued for as great literature.

The problem here as I see it is that Burns has been hijacked by an old and dusty Scottish conservatism that has dominated our culture. He is consequently seen by many as the central icon of the tartan and haggis cringe and his work panned as frivolous as a result. Whatever the bard may have been, he deserves better than that. Consider alone that he was a lowly farmer whose life was short, who had few opportunities, who wrote so much - poems, letters, songs - who was able to work his way through the disadvantages of his background into a position of social standing, to be elevated into a cult figure, a legend in his own time, a well respected and interesting personality. Even if his poetry had been garbage he would still have been worthy of celebration for these other reasons alone.

And what is great literature anyway I ask? How does anyone know it when they see it? Is it purely about the words. I think not. It has to be in the feeling, the sentiment, the delivery, the what’s being said, the when, the manner in which it is said et al. Like with music it is as much in the context as it is in the content. Brown is typical of those critics who speak in the language of the absolute, an ideal that would represent perfect literary merit against which everything is measured. Bull! I think everything gets measured against everything else in its relevant context.

No, this problem that comes up with Brown is a kind of snobbery. People like him think they know what’s good and the rest of us will benefit from being told. He doesn’t, nor do his coterie of learned prattlers. That’s the beauty of art. No one knows. It moves around from place to place, period to period and changes as the context changes. We should be humbled by the enormity of context. Content is easier to argue for especially by clever people who are wittier, faster, snappier than the rest of us who are apt to feel intimidated by eloquence. They know, because they can articulate a view better. They don’t know. Brown certainly misses the merit and the value of Burns. He might benefit from looking a bit deeper into the great man’s life and his work.