James Hogg Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on James Hogg

For the last twenty years of his life, James Hogg, "The Ettrick Shepherd," was perhaps as well known in his native Scotland as any of his contemporaries, save only Sir Walter Scott. This reputation derived not only from his numerous poems, stories, sketches, and novels that appeared in the leading literary magazines and in book form, but also from his having become a "character" (in both senses of the word) in the long-running satirical series, Noctes Ambrosianae (Blackwood's Magazine, 1822-1835) by critic John Wilson ("Christopher North"). Hogg's public image as a rural shepherd with no formal education was both a true picture and an attempt to capitalize on similarities with his famous predecessor Robert Burns. Throughout the nineteenth century Hogg was known as an untutored, bluff, rustic farmer, a maker of graceful songs and lyrics primarily, who had also written long poems imitative of Scott. Queen Victoria noted in her diary that she spent time in her Holyrood Palace garden reading Hogg's poems.

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