John Campbell Shairp

John Campbell Shairp
John Campbell Shairp (1819–1885) was a Scottish literary critic, poet, and professor of poetry at the University of Oxford. He was known for his works on Romantic poets, particularly his biography of Robert Burns titled "Robert Burns," and his literary criticism, including "Aspects of Poetry." Shairp also held a strong interest in Scottish culture and religion, which influenced his writing. He contributed significantly to Victorian literary thought and was an advocate of the moral and spiritual value of poetry.

Author's Books:


YOUTH IN AYRSHIRE. Great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as we recede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimation of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness. Tried by this standard, Burns must be great indeed, for during the eighty years that have passed since his death, men's interest in the man himself and their estimate of his genius have been... more...

PREFACE. Those who have long known the poetry of Wordsworth will be no strangers to the existence of this Journal of his sister, which is now for the first time published entire.  They will have by heart those few wonderful sentences from it which here and there stand at the head of the Poet’s ‘Memorials of a Tour in Scotland in 1803.’  Especially they will remember that ‘Extract from the... more...