BOOK of the DAY

studies in scottish

literature: Volume XXX

Edited by G Ross Roy

University of South Carolina, #19.95

FOUNDED by Professor G Ross Roy and published from his base at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, this is the first time Studies in Scottish Literature has comprised essays on a single author. There are almost 30 papers from the university's 1996 Burns Conference, beginning with Tom Sutherland's moving account of his six-and-a-half years' incarceration in Beirut.

It's not surprising that this should be included in a collection of essays devoted to the works of Robert Burns, especially given Sutherland's love of Burns and the fact that on his release he was quoted as saying how Burns's work not only helped him survive captivity, but come to terms with his captors. ''Burns championed liberty,'' says Kenneth Simpson in his introduction, ''and Tom Sutherland, more than anyone, must know what freedom really means.''

The paper is a testament to human courage and endurance. Sutherland builds his account, using the ordinary facts of his imprisonment, his diet and locations, the daily routine, the guards, and the cells, 6ft by 4ft by 6ft high, in 16 separate locations. ''We were chained most of the time to the wall, sometimes to the floor or a radiator depending on which kind of room we were in; blindfolded all the time that the guards were in the room.''

Small wonder it's the opening paper. Others explore the diversity and range, the astonishing abilities of the world's only celebrated poet. As a recognised source of national pride and identity, Robert Burns gives us an annual opportunity to explore our national preoccupations. It's a pity he didn't have much to say about football, but he did make up for it by inadvertently allowing us the opportunity to theorise on drink and sex, which has the continuing effect of marginalising his poetry.

Few of these accounts consider, far less recognise, the rigours of eighteenth-century farm life, which leave us wondering not only how Burns could acquire such a rich education, enjoy a vigorous social life, or write with such wondrous diversity. Time and again in this splendid, thoughtful collection, where essays are grouped by subject, writers turn to the poetry rather than the myth; time and again they question our continuing surprise in having a writer who could articulate the lives and emotions of country folk in their own language and remain uniquely ordinary.