English Literature, 1500 to 1799: Biographies

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Further reading

Fergusson, Robert

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | | Copyright

Fergusson, Robert (1750–74), published his first poems in Ruddiman's Weekly Magazine (1771), in imitation of English models, and his first Scots poem, ‘The Daft Days’, appeared in 1772. A volume appeared in 1773 which was to have a profound influence on Burns, who found himself inspired to ‘emulating vigour’. Fergusson's ‘The Farmer's Ingle’, a vernacular description of homely rustic life, is a clear foreshadowing of Burns's ‘The Cotter's Saturday Night’. Fergusson vividly evokes the street life, taverns, and amusements of Edinburgh, and mocks the established literary world in satirical attacks on Dr Johnson and Mackenzie (‘The Sow of Feeling’).

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Fergusson, Robert." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Fergusson, Robert." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-FergussonRobert.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Fergusson, Robert." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-FergussonRobert.html

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Robert Fergusson

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2011 | Copyright

Robert Fergusson 1750–74, Scottish poet, b. Edinburgh. He was a precursor of Robert Burns, who proclaimed his debt to Fergusson's Poems (1773). After careers in the clergy and in medicine, he worked as a public official and periodical contributor. Graphic and amusing pictures of life among the Edinburgh poor are found in his best poems— "The Farmer's Ingle,""Leith Races," and "Auld Reekie."

Bibliography: See his works (ed. by M. P. McDiarmid, 1954–56); study by A. H. MacLaine (1965).

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"Robert Fergusson." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Fergusso.html

"Robert Fergusson." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Fergusso.html

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