Paternalism, Public Memory and National Identity in Early Victorian Scotland: The Robert Burns Festival at Ayr in 1844

Abstract

This article analyses an episode in which several major themes of Scottish (and British) cultural and political history intersected: the cult of heroes, romantic paternalism and the evolution of Scottish national identity. Departing from interpretations that have overemphasized the hegemony of an anti-aristocratic bourgeoisie, the article interprets the Burns cult as a contested site of memory. By explicating the dramaturgy of the Robert Burns Festival in 1844 it shows how this event interlocked with the Eglinton tournament, Young England, Queen Victoria's first visit to Scotland, and the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights, to express a version of national identity that was intended to provide the cultural framework for an assertion of aristocratic paternalism in Scotland.

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