Carlyle's Essay on Burns

Charles L. Hanson's "Carlyle's Essay on Burns" offers a close, engaging look at how Thomas Carlyle's famous essay on Robert Burns helped shape the way readers understand both the poet and the broader idea of literary greatness. Hanson traces Carlyle's arguments with care, showing how the essay goes beyond praise: it becomes a kind of cultural statement about genius, national identity, and the moral force Carlyle believed true poetry could carry. Through attention to Carlyle's style, his critical choices, and the historical pressures behind his thinking, Hanson reveals why the essay still feels urgent—because it frames Burns not only as a writer, but as a figure through whom questions of character, authenticity, and human feeling can be read. Carlyle's Essay on Burns is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1897.