Britannica
Sources used in this answer
Which writers did Robert Burns read as a young man?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Robert Burns
Robert Burns, engraving from A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, 1870.
As a young man, Robert Burns was well-versed in English literary traditions and read most of the important 18th-century English writers. His reading included the works of William Shakespeare, John Milton, and John Dryden.12
Regarding his exposure to Scottish literature, his childhood reading was primarily limited to orally transmitted folk songs and folk tales, as well as a modernization of the late 15th-century poem "Wallace".2