O WAD some power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as feminists see us.
That dubious attempt at being cute doubtless does a disservice to the personnel implicated in the following plot. I don’t even know if Liz Lochhead, our much loved former Makar, would call herself a feminist.
But she stirred up a hornets’ nest with her claim that Robert Burns was the Harvey Weinstein of his day, a sex pest and even, allegedly, a rapist. Certainly, it’s weel kent that Burns took a somewhat pro-active approach when it came to the fair sex and, for all that we chaps get a bad rap generally these days, you’ll find the vast majority of us aren’t very comfortable with men becoming over-assertive, so to say.
It should make for some interesting discussions on Burns Night this week and, indeed, next Tuesday when Ms Lochhead is due to expand on her remarks at a meeting of the Scottish Hellenic Society in Glasgow.
I’m sure she’ll treat the furore with her usual good humour, but the serious point she was making concerns a letter of the bard’s which bragged about jumping on a “destitute and friendless” Jean Armour – his future wife – and inflicting upon her a “thundering scalade” (military assault) on a floor strewn with horse manure.
Armour was pregnant with his twins at the time. Ms Lochhead said this “seemed very like a rape” and was “very, very Weinsteinian”. It indicated, she said, that the bard was a “sex pest”.
Defenders of Burns have retorted that, unusually among men, he may have been prone to exaggerating his sexual exploits and that we cannot judge standards then by standards now. And Ms Lochhead herself has said that it’s Burns’ poetry we celebrate not his personal behaviour.
All the same, the episode has added a contemporary news spin to our annual celebration of the vigorous versifier. The celebration consists of suppers up and also down the country, the largest being the 10-day Big Burns Supper in the bard’s home town of Dumfries.
It has lined up some amazing acts for the celebration, including Donovan, Bill Bailey, Eddi Reader, Dougie Maclean, Badly Drawn Boy, Ocean Wisdom, and Le Haggis.
Needless to say, Burns is also being celebrated in his Ayrshire birthplace of Alloway, with tours, illuminations and, er, haggis hurling.
In Edinburgh, meanwhile, BurnsFest at the Scottish Storytelling Centre has puppets, dancing, drama, talks, recitals and workshops. Much to celebrate, then, in the author of Ae Fond Kiss – which is where on some occasions he might have been better leaving things.
Burns Night is on Thursday (though events are taking place all week).
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