William Dunbar

This article is about the Scottish poet. For other people with the same name, see William Dunbar (disambiguation).
Statue of William Dunbar, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Title page of Dunbar's The Goldyn Targe in the Chepman and Myllar Prints of 1508. (National Library of Scotland).

William Dunbar (1459 or 1460 – by 1530) was a Scottish makar, or court poet, active in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV[1] and produced a large body of work in Scots distinguished by its great variation in themes and literary styles. He was probably a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie.[2][3] His surname is also spelt Dumbar.

  1. ^ Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland
  2. ^ W. Mackay Mackenzie, The Poems of William Dunbar, The Mercat Press, Edinburgh,1990.
  3. ^ The full text of The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy with notes at TEAMS