“The Bruce, with which the Scottish contribution to English literature begins, long held its place as the national epic of Scotland.”

—  John Barbour

Kenneth Sisam Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964) p. 108.
Criticism

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Scottish poet 1316–1395

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“Scottish literature begins effectively with Archdeacon Barbour's Bruce some sixty years after Bannockburn, and to the Bruce and Blind Harry's Wallace (so staunch is the Scot, and such an antiquary in grain) must be attributed much of the colouring and subsequent tone of Scottish sentiment. The Bruce is the better poem, simple, truthful, noble, stirring, a proper start for the literature of a fighting people.”

John Barbour (1316–1395) Scottish poet

George Gordon The Discipline of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946) p. 88.
Criticism

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