Throughout his eclectic and fascinating career, the Scottish writer Allan Cunningham (1784-1842) crossed, challenged, and fused boundaries: trained as a stonemason, he was both a traditional song-collector and an inventor of ballads himself; a collector and “historian” of traditional culture who became a renowned art critic; an unsuccessful dramatist who proved a skilful biographer. Cunningham may have first appeared in print alongside Byron, but his reputation in histories of Romanticism is hardly comparable; most often mentioned in the context of Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, both of whom admired him, the nature of Cunningham’s achievements deserves to be reassessed. The sheer diversity of his output may be partly responsible for this relative neglect but, as well as being the…
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Citation: Dunnigan, Sarah. "Alan Cunningham". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 June 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1095, accessed 18 April 2024.]
