Alexander Ross (poet)
Alexander Ross | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 13, 1699 |
| Died | May 20, 1784 (aged 85) Lochlee, Glen Esk, Angus |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Occupation(s) | teacher, poet |
| Known for | Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess |
Alexander Ross (13 April 1699[1] – 20 May 1784) was a Scottish poet.
Biography
[edit]Alexander Ross was born to a farming family at Torphins in Aberdeenshire.[2] He was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen[3] and worked as private tutor for the children of Sir William Forbes of Craigievar.[4] In 1732 he became a headmaster in Lochlee, Angus, where he would live until his death in 1784. He had been in the habit of writing verse for his own amusement[5] when, in 1768, at the suggestion of James Beattie, he published Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess.[6][7][8]
Ross was an admirer of the 16th Century makar Alexander Montgomerie and in around 1753 he composed a poem entitled "A Dream in Imitation of the Cherrie and the Slae" which has never been published.[9]
A memorial was erected in his honour c. 1854 in the old churchyard of Lochlee in Glen Esk, Angus, where he is buried.[2]
Reputation
[edit]Robert Burns praised Alexander Ross, writing "There is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of Tullochgorum etc., and the late Ross at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay, with his contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to the world of deathless existence and truly immortal song."[10]
References
[edit]- ^ "Significant Scots - Alexander Ross". electricscotland.com.
- ^ a b Gibbs, John S.; D. Hay Fleming (April 1912). "Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess". The Scottish Historical Review. 9 (35): 291–300. JSTOR 25518449.
- ^ "Alexander Ross". oxfordreference.com.
- ^ "Overview of Alexander Ross". scottish-places.info.
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 739.
- ^ "Alexander Ross (1699-1784)". Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
- ^ "Alexander Ross (1699–1784). Wooed and Married and a'. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1909. The Book of Georgian Verse". bartleby.com.
- ^ Zenzinger, Peter (2013). "Cultural Paradoxes in Alexander Ross's Fortunate Shepherdess". Studies in Scottish Literature. 35 (1). Technische Universität Berlin: 271–294. Retrieved 12 July 2013.
- ^ Verweij, Sebastian, "Place, Poetry, and Politics: The Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Reception of Alexander Montgomerie's The Cherrie and the Slae", in Brown, Rhona & Lyall, Scott (eds.), Scottish Literary Review, Spring/Summer 2023, p. 26, ISSN 2050-6678
- ^ Robert Burns Country: The Burns Encyclopedia: Ross, Alexander (1699 – 1784)
External links
[edit]| International | |
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| National | |
