News at Eleven: [Robert Burns] knew that he was,

for some of his supporters, an exotic specimen to be exhibited, proof that a “mute inglorious Milton” really could be found behind a plough. In fact, he exploited this image, aware of its currency and marketability; it was, as he put it, “part of the machinery of his poetical character” to pass for “an illiterate ploughman who wrote from pure inspiration” on occasion. But this acquiescence in the role scripted for him by the culture was almost invariably accompanied by subversive elements.

from The Times Literary Supplement: The defence for Robert Burns

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