Burns and the Borders of Poetry in the Letters of James Wodrow and Samuel Kenrick

Abstract

The rich and lengthy correspondence (1750–1810) between the Ayrshire minister, James Wodrow, and his friend Samuel Kenrick contains four pairs of letters which discuss how much local knowledge was required to understand and appreciate the Scots poetry of Robert Burns, located in their own ongoing conversation about the transferability of language beyond borders. Wodrow was deeply embedded in the church and social life of Burns’s Ayrshire, while Kenrick, a Welshman living in England, also had substantial roots in the southwest of Scotland. Their discussions present an example of informal but informed literary criticism in the Enlightenment, beyond the circles of the celebrated literati or published reviewers.