‘As a man of the world I am most miserably deficient’: Robert Burns’s Masculinity

The twofold approach to Robert Burns’s masculinity – which suggests that he was either a ‘Man of Feeling’ or phallocentric womaniser – fails to capture the nuanced spectrum of masculinity which Burns enacts. Primarily deploying R.W. Conell's framework for understanding masculinity, as well as examining eighteenth-century constructions of masculinity, this article presents this spectrum. Considering club culture, sentimental literature, associational reading, and polite debate, this article evaluates the social and cultural shaping of the Scottish Bard's masculinity. Furthermore, this article ventures into Burns's wider interactions with the feminine, addressing the patriarchal power dynamics which undoubtedly influence contemporary opinion of him.