Ironically for a poet, Burns is a kind of empty page: other people project what they see on to him.

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To the high society of Edinburgh he's the ploughman poet; to his drinking buddies in Ayrshire he's a raucous man of the soil. To Jean Armour, he's an unreliable rogue.

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To Agnes (Nancy) Macelhose, he's the romantic-hearted antidote to her cruel husband.

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Interestingly, despite writing A man's a man for a' that, he had no qualms at first taking a job on a slave plantation.

 

His treatment of women is no less unenlightened; bedding any he can with scant regard to the consequences for them. Later, in thrall to Nancy he softens enough to consider (temporarily) that platonic love could be superior to erotic conquest.

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In pursuing her, the tables are turned and he becomes as infatuated as the many women who fell for him previously.

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Finally, with the prospect of love gone and health fading, he comes to regard one woman in particular  - the ex-slave Cubah Corwallis - to be his true equal and friend.