| Abstract |
Although it is one of Robert Burns’s most famous poems, ‘To a Haggis’ has also proved to be one of his most controversial. A centrepiece of Burns Suppers, it caught Hugh MacDiarmid’s negative attention for its public response. Burns and the panoply of events surrounding his poem, MacDiarmid thought, unfortunately invited participation from all and sundry. Scottish literature could not advance with so many unsuitable speakers aligning themselves with Burns. Burns’s poem, however, stands as a culinary and cultural challenge. Through the discourses of gastronomy, it provokes its own communal, varied, and even resistant response. The performance of attraction/repulsion is coded in the poem itself. The poem, thus, is a site of emerging authenticity for Scots and cultural tourists alike. |
