Allan Ramsay (redirected from Allan Ramsey)

Ramsay, Allan 

Born Oct. 15, 1686, in Leadhills, Lanarkshire; died Jan. 7, 1758, in Edinburgh. Scottish poet.

Ramsay collected old Scottish poetry. In 1718 he published the narrative poem Chrysts-Kirke on the Greene and between 1718 and 1720 the collection Scots Songs. He also published an anthology of Scottish verse written before 1600, The Evergreen (1724), and a collection of English and Scottish songs, The Tea-table Miscellany (1724–27), which included some verses by Ramsay himself. He wrote the dramatic pastoral The Gentle Shepherd (1725) and the collection Thirty Fables (1730). Ramsay’s poetry, written in the spirit of Scottish folk poetry and in Scottish dialect, influenced R. Burns and R. Fergusson.

WORKS

Works, vols. 1–3. Edinburgh-London, 1951–61.

REFERENCES

Gibson, A. New Light on Allan Ramsay. Belfast, 1927.
Martin, B. Allan Ramsay: A Study of His Life and Works. Cambridge, Mass., 1931.