Robert Burns
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Robert Burns (January 25, 1759 – July 21, 1796) is the best known of the poets who have written in Scots. Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung at Hogmanay, and Scots Wha Hae served for a long time as an unofficial National anthem of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well known today across the world include A Red, Red Rose, A Man's A Man for A' That, To a Louse, and To a Mouse.
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Biography
He was born in Alloway, South Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of William Burnes or Burns, a small farmer, and a man of considerable force of character and self-culture. His youth was passed in poverty, hardship, and a degree of severe manual labour which left its traces in a premature stoop and weakened constitution. He had little regular schooling, and got much of what education he had from his father, who taught his children reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history, and also wrote for them "A Manual of Christian Belief." With all his ability and character, however, the elder Burns was consistently unfortunate, and migrated with his large family from farm to farm without ever being able to improve his circumstances.
In 1781 Robert went to Irvine to become a flax-dresser, but, as the result of a New Year carousal of the workmen, including himself, the shop took fire and was burned to the ground. This venture accordingly came to an end. In 1783 he started composing poetry in a traditional style using the Ayrshire dialect of Lowland Scots. In 1784 his father died, and Burns with his brother Gilbert made an ineffectual struggle to keep on the farm; failing in which they removed to Mossgiel, where they maintained an uphill fight for 4 years.
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect
Meanwhile, his love affair with Jean Armour had passed through its first stage, and the troubles in connection therewith, combined with the want of success in farming, led him to think of going to Jamaica as bookkeeper on a plantation. From this he was dissuaded by a letter from Thomas Blacklock, and at the suggestion of his brother published his poems in the volume, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish dialect in June 1786. This edition was brought out by a local printer in Kilmarnock and contained much of his best work, including "The Twa Dogs," "The Address to the Deil," "Hallowe'en," "The Cottar's Saturday Night," "The Mouse," "The Daisy," etc., many of which had been written at Mossgiel. Copies of this edition are now extremely scarce, and as much as £550 has been paid for one.
The success of the work was immediate, the poet's name rang over all Scotland, and he was induced to go to Edinburgh to superintend the issue of a new edition. There he was received as an equal by the brilliant circle of men of letters which the city then boasted – Dugald Stewart, Robertson, Blair, etc., and was a guest at aristocratic tables, where he bore himself with unaffected dignity. Here also Scott, then a boy of 15, saw him and describes him as of "manners rustic, not clownish. His countenance ... more massive than it looks in any of the portraits ... a strong expression of shrewdness in his lineaments; the eye alone indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest." The results of this visit outside of its immediate and practical object, included some life-long friendships, among which were those with Lord Glencairn and Mrs. Dunlop. The new ed. brought him £400. About this time the episode of Highland Mary occurred.
The Scots Musical Museum
In the winter of 1786 in Edinburgh he met James Johnson, a struggling music engraver / music seller, with a love of old Scots songs and a determination to preserve them. Burns shared this interest and became an enthusiastic contributor to The Scots Musical Museum. The first volume of this was published in 1787 and included three songs by Burns. He contributed 40 songs to volume 2, and would end up responsible for about a third of the 600 songs in the whole collection as well as making a considerable editorial contribution. The final volume was published in 1803.
On his return to Ayrshire he renewed his relations with Jean Armour, whom he ultimately married, took the farm of Ellisland near Dumfries, having meanwhile taken lessons in the duties of an exciseman, as a line to fall back upon should farming again prove unsuccessful. At Ellisland his society was cultivated by the local gentry. And this, together with literature and his duties in the Customs and Excise, to which he had been appointed in 1789, proved too much of a distraction to admit of success on the farm, which in 1791 he gave up.
Meanwhile he was writing at his best, and in 1790 had produced Tam o' Shanter. About this time he was offered and declined an appointment in London on the staff of the Star newspaper, and refused to become a candidate for a newly-created Chair of Agriculture in the University of Edinburgh, although influential friends offered to support his claims. After giving up his farm he removed to Dumfries.
It was at this time that, being requested to furnish words for The Melodies of Scotland, he responded by contributing over 100 songs. He made major contributions to George Thomson's A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice as well as to James Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum. Arguably his claim to immortality chiefly rests on these volumes which placed him in the front rank of lyric poets. Burns described how he had to master singing the tune, then would compose the words: "My way is: I consider the poetic Sentiment, correspondent to my idea of the musical expression; then chuse my theme; begin one Stanza; when that is composed, which isgenerally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in Nature around me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom; humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. when I feel my Muse beginning to jade, 1 retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper; swinging, at intervals, on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my, pen goes."
His worldly prospects were now perhaps better than they had ever been; but he was entering upon the last and darkest period of his career. He had become soured, and moreover had alienated many of his best friends by too freely expressing sympathy with the French Revolution, and the then unpopular advocates of reform at home. His health began to give way; he became prematurely old, and fell into fits of despondency; and the habits of intemperance, to which he had always been more or less addicted, grew upon him. He died on July 21, 1796. Within a short time of his death, money started pouring in from all over Scotland to support his widow and children.
His memory is celebrated by Burns clubs across the world; his birthday is an unofficial "National Day" for Scots and those with Scottish ancestry, celebrated with Burns suppers.
Burns' 1787 epistle to Mrs Scott, Gudewife of Wanchope House, Roxburgh, is a rare example of the rhyming of the word purple – it is a common myth that there is no rhyme.
- I'd be mair vauntie o' my hap,
- Douce hingin' owre my curple,
- Than ony ermine ever lap,
- Or proud imperial purple.
Burns' Works and Influence
Burns' direct influences in the use of Scots in poetry were Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) and Robert Fergusson. Burns' poetry also drew upon a substantial familiarity and knowledge of Classical, Biblical, and English literature, as well as the Scottish Makar tradition. Burns was skilled in writing not only in Scots but also in English. Some of his works, such as Love and Liberty (also known as The Jolly Beggars), are written in both Scots and English for various effects.
Burns' themes included republicanism (he lived during the French Revolutionary period) and Radicalism which he expressed covertly in Scots Wha Hae, Scottish patriotism, anticlericalism, class inequalities, gender roles, commentary on the Scottish Kirk of his time, Scottish cultural identity, poverty, sexuality, and the beneficial aspects of popular socialization (carousing, Scotch whisky, folk songs, and so forth). Burns' views on these themes in many ways parallel those of William Blake, but it is believed that, although contemporaries, they were both unaware of the other. Unlike Blake, Burns' works tend to be less overtly mystical in tone and style.
Burns is generally classified as a proto-Romantic poet, and he influenced Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley greatly. The Edinburgh literati worked to sentimentalize Burns during his life and after his death, dismissing his education by calling him a "heaven-taught ploughman." Burns would influence later Scottish writers, especially Hugh MacDiarmid who fought to dismantle the sentimental Burns cult that had dominated Scottish literature in MacDiarmid's opinion.
Burns also worked to collect and preserve Scottish folk songs, sometimes revising, expanding, and adapting them. One of the better known of these collections is The Merry Muses of Caledonia (the title is not Burns'), a collection of bawdy lyrics that were popular in the music halls of Scotland as late as the 20th century. Many of Burns' most famous poems are songs with the music based upon older traditional songs. For example, Auld Lang Syne is set to the traditional tune Can Ye Labour Lea while A Red, Red Rose is set to the tune of Major Graham.
The genius of Burns is marked by spontaneity, directness, and sincerity, and his variety is marvellous, ranging from the tender intensity of some of his lyrics through the rollicking humour and blazing wit of Tam o' Shanter to the blistering satire of Holy Willie's Prayer and The Holy Fair. His life is a tragedy, and his character full of flaws. But he fought at tremendous odds, and as Carlyle in his great Essay says, "Granted the ship comes into harbour with shrouds and tackle damaged, the pilot is blameworthy ... but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs."
See Cutty-sark for the popularity of the phrase "Weel done, Cutty-sark", a line from "Tam O' Shanter".
Summary
References
- This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.
- Robert Burns, The Canongate Burns: The Complete Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. Andrew Noble and Patrick Scott Hogg (2001; Edinburgh: Canongate, 2003). ISBN 1-84195-380-6
External links
- Robert Burns Club based in Alexandria, Scotland
- Robert Burns Resource: the Poetry and Letters of Robert Burns
- Robert Burns Country: the 'official' Robert Burns site
- From Project Gutenberg:
- World Burns Club
- British poets and the French Revolution: Robert Burns, an article about the politics of Robert Burns.
