ABSTRACT
From the sources presently available, it is difficult to identify the precise order in which Robert Burns read the books that so influenced his thinking and his work. This chapter deals with them within broad chronological periods in which it is likely that he read certain writers or came under the influence of people who were instrumental in assisting him in the modification of some of his views or in the adoption of certain ideas. The first period of his childhood was dominated by the influence of a Calvinistic philosophy through the pervasiveness of the Westminster Confession of Faith. The approach to Crabbe and Austen is one which combines close reading with fresh contextual and historical analysis. When the Confession is compared with the Manual, the difference between the two documents soon becomes obvious. The Confession is magisterial in tone and supports every statement with what it asserts is the authority of the God-given words of scripture.
