Dunbar's genius has been recognised not only by critics but by modern poets such as Auden and Eliot. This critical study examines Dunbar's view of himself as a poet, or `makar', and the way he handles various poetic genres. New emphasis is placed on the petitions, or begging-poems, and their use for poetic introspection. There is also a particularly full study of Dunbar's under-valued comic poems, and of the modes most congenial to him - notably parody, irony, `flyting', or invective, and black dream-fantasy. Priscilla Bawcutt takes account of recent scholarship on Dunbar and also the literary traditions available to him, both in Latin and the vernaculars, including `popular' and alliterative poetry as well as that of Chaucer and his followers. In contesting the over-simple and reductive views purveyed by some critics that Dunbar is primarily a moralist, or no more than a skilled virtuoso, she has written a well-informed, critically searching, and balanced account of the poetry. Priscilla Bawcutt's study of Dunbar has been long and eagerly awaited; the book offers an authority and breadth that will not disappoint. It is a capacious, patient, affectionate authorial study - and a chef d'oeuvre - of a kind now uncommon in literary studies, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Bawcutt's careful attention to Dunbar's textual tradition is, though unassumingly presented, one of the cornerstones of the book's achievement.