Author: Dunbar, William
Biography:
DUNBAR, William (c. 1465-1513: ODNB)
David Laing’s preface to his edition of Dunbar’s collected poems indicates that many but not all the poems had been previously published. A prior poet, Dunbar left few biographical traces. He was probably the William Dunbar who studied at St. Andrews university and became a licentiate in 1479. He is known to have become a priest and a courtier in the court of King James IV of Scotland. His poetic quarrel with another poet, Walter Kennedy (q.v.), dates to before 1505 and The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy was one of the first works printed in Scotland (c. 1508). Dunbar was paid a court pension only until May 1513 and that may be when he died although it is possible he lived longer, even to as late as 1530. Interest in Dunbar’s verse survived his death but it was only with Laing’s 1834 edition that the poems came to be accorded serious scholarly study. Laing’s preface establishes that he revisited all the relevant manuscripts, even for poems that had been published, and he made new transcriptions. He also transcribed the poems that had never been printed and were known only in manuscript. His work set the stage for the subsequent flowering of interest in Dunbar, now recognised as a major Scottish poet. Laing (1793-1878) was born in Edinburgh to William Laing, a publisher and bookseller, and his wife Helen Kirk. He became a partner in his father’s business in 1821 and began publishing his scholarly editions of the works of Scottish poets. When Walter Scott (q.v.) and others formed the Bannatyne Club in 1823, Laing became the secretary. Laing was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1824 and proved invaluable, contributing to publications and serving in various official roles until the year of his death. His “editorial methods were of the highest calibre” (ODNB). He died at home in Portobello, Edinburgh, on 18 Oct. 1878 and was buried in the Calton cemetery. (ODNB 20 Aug. 2024; David Laing, ed., The Poems of William Dunbar [1834]) SR