'O what a glorious sight': performing identity and the Burns Supper

Young, R. (2021) 'O what a glorious sight': performing identity and the Burns Supper. In: Brown, I. and Carruthers, G. (eds.) Performing Robert Burns: Enactments and Representations of the National Bard. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, pp. 85-102. ISBN 9781474457149

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Publisher's URL: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-performing-robert-burns.html

Abstract

This chapter examines the Burns Supper as a mode of performance. It looks specifically at Burns Night - the annual celebration of the birthday of poet Robert Burns held every January 25th - in the context of recent ideas about performance within memory studies and in relation to public rituals of commemoration based around the consumption of food. Focussing approximately on the period spanning the late nineteenth to late twentieth century, it considers performance as central to the Burns Supper, from the recital of Burns’s address ‘To a Haggis’ as a ready-made performance script through to the various musical performances that are traditionally part of the event. In dramatizing the consumption of food among an imagined community of hardy labouring Scots, ‘To a Haggis’ also raises wider issues about identity. With this in mind, the chapter also considers performance more broadly in the context of the public performance of ‘identity’, exploring how issues of gender, class, and nationality are foregrounded in the Burns Supper as it evolves throughout the twentieth century. Examples from the New World and New Zealand show the complex construction of national identity at the Burns Supper: how against the backdrop of diaspora and Empire, it evokes a sense of Scottishness that is criss-crossed with other forms of patriotic and civic identification. Taking into account the role of public feasts in ritualistically reproducing existing social distinctions, we also consider the paradoxical manner in which the Burns Supper presents an egalitarian re-imagining of nationhood which has often worked to entrench gender divisions or to maintain existing class distinctions by enacting progressive values within a socially conservative frame.

Item Type:Book Sections
Keywords:Robert Burns, Burns Suppers, Burns Night, Burns Clubs, ‘To a Haggis’, Scottish diaspora, British Empire, public commemoration, author reception, Memory Studies.
Status:Published
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Young, Dr Ronnie
Authors: Young, R.
Subjects:P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History
P Language and Literature > PR English literature
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > Scottish Literature
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:9781474457149

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