He is revered as the national poet of Scotland, loved for the romantic verse he wrote in his native tongue and his broadsides against the establishment.

But new analysis of hundreds of letters has now revealed that Robert Burns’ friends urged him not to write in Scots for fear of alienating English readers, and advised him to steer clear of political subjects.

The collection of some 800 letters written by Scotland’s national bard, along with hundreds of letters from his friends and admirers, has thrown new light on Burns and his work.

Central to the research project at the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Robert Burns Studies are letters the poet exchanged with his friends, Dr John Moore and Frances Dunlop, in which they urged him to temper some of his language.

Dr Rhona Brown, senior lecturer in Scottish literature at the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Robert Burns Studies, said: “Early on, Moore advised Burns not to write in Scots. He cautioned Burns that he was limiting his audience and felt that London readers wouldn’t understand or connect with the Scots language. Dunlop advised him to avoid political subjects.”

Fortunately for generations of readers that followed, Burns ignored them both – producing verse such as The Banks o’ Doon’, Auld Lang Syne and To a Louse, as well as Awa Whigs Awa, his critique of the Whig party and the union with England.

“Burns is his own man and ignores the advice and carries on regardless,” said Dr Brown. “I think history has now shown that he was right.”

Letters get closer to Burns ‘the man’

On 23 May 1787, Dr Moore wrote to Burns, saying: “It is evident that you already possess a great variety of expression and Command of the English Language, you ought therefore to deal more sparingly for the future in the Provincial Dialect – why should you by using that limit the number of your admirers to those who understand the Scotish [sic], when you can extend it to all persons of Taste who understand the English language.”

Replying a few months later, Burns told Dr Moore of his early struggles with English, in relation to writing about a young woman he had been working with.

“My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; but you know the Scotch idiom, She was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass,” he wrote.

Dr Craig Lamont, research associate in Robert Burns studies at the University of Glasgow, said: “Burns clearly ignores Moore’s advice to write less Scots verse, and though he makes excellent use of English prose in his correspondence, he did send one letter entirely in Scots.

“It is addressed to William Nicol, Master of the High School in Edinburgh, and its date – June 1 1787 – may suggest that Burns had Moore’s advice in mind, and that rather than writing less Scots, he tried out writing even more.”

Dr Brown said the letters were the closest readers will have got to Burns since his death in 1796.

“In the correspondence, we get closer to Burns ‘the man’ than anywhere else,” she said. “His letters reveal his triumphs, failures, anxieties, fears and joys.”

Among them is a letter to Dr Moore detailing his early life. It was so long that his friends asked him in future to “divide your letters when they are so heavy” and he had been “obliged to pay six and eightpence for it” in postage.

The correspondence is to be published as part of the new Collected Works of Robert Burns, published by Oxford University Press.