The View from the Octagon

Abstract The Octagon, the central plaza of the city of Dunedin in New Zealand’s South Island, is dominated by the Sir John Steell statue of Robert Burns. The city is also home to the Robert Burns Hotel and the Burns Building at the University of Otago, which sponsors the Robert Burns Fellowship, New Zealand’s premier literary residency. In part, the prominence of the Burns name in Dunedin testifies to a family connection: the Rev Thomas Burns, the poet’s nephew, who cofounded the settlement of Otago. But it also testifies to the ongoing cultural legacy of Scotland’s national poet in Aotearoa New Zealand. This chapter will discuss the influence of Burns on the Scots vernacular poetry of New Zealand—and also on the vernacular prose of works like Vincent Pyke’s 1884 Scots language novel, Craigielinn—with particular reference to the development and establishment of New Zealand literary and cultural identities. Beyond the colonial period, the chapter will assess the profound engagement with Robert Burns’s poetry in the work of New Zealand’s pre-eminent twentieth-century poet, James K. Baxter while also considering Burnsian encounters in the work of contemporary New Zealand writers. The chapter will also discuss the Burnsian contribution to NZ’s associational culture, looking in particular at the Dunedin Burns Club, as well as recent attempts to renovate the tradition of Burnsian poetry and song in contemporary Aotearoa. In so doing, it will provide a detailed and nuanced account of important aspects of Robert Burns’s Australasian afterlife.