I hadn’t thought what Burns and Byron had in common until now.
They almost have the same name.
They were both very, very good looking.
They both died early.
Their lives overlapped.
Their poetry was immensely popular and widely read although they were both writing in opposition to conventional expectations.
But the differences are much greater, Burn Scottish and Byron English, Burns pretty well working class and educated locally, Byron aristocratic (he inherited the title as a child from an uncle -his father was already dead) and educated at an elite school (Harrow – the same as Winston Churchill and Tennyson.)
Byron's mother was Scottish and he spent time in Scotland as a child, but not the Ayrshire Lowlands where Burns lived.
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