Robert Burns Summary

Biography EssayBorn on 25 January 1759 in Alloway, Scotland, to William and Agnes Brown Burnes, Robert Burns (he eventually dropped the "e" from his surname) followed his father's example by becoming ... Read more

Eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote or adapted one of the most instantly recognizable songs in the world, "Auld Lang Syne," which is chorused annually around the globe on New Year's Ev... Read more

In the following essay, Crawford analyzes Burns's attempt at treating local themes in a universal manner in his poetry. Many poems of Burns's first period embody the experience of a r... Read more

In this essay, Ericson-Roos analyzes the women of Burns's love poetry, asserting that "Burns shows an extraordinary psychological insight into the feminine mind." The majority ... Read more

In the following essay, Wells explores the narrative structure and didactic content of several of Burns's poems. Almost everyone, if asked to categorize Burns's work, would describe h... Read more

In the following essay, McKenna offers a thematic and structural analysis of Burns's verse-epistles. As a group, Robert Burns's verse-epistles have been consistently ignored by commen... Read more

In this essay, Bold contends that Burns's poems written in the Scots dialect are superior to those he wrote in English. In a book generally dismissive of Scots as a literary language, Edwin ... Read more

A Scottish-born writer and critic, Highet was a classical scholar and distinguished educator. His important studies Juvenal the Satirist (1954) and The Anatomy of Satire (1962) were scholarly works th... Read more

In the essay below, Beaty assesses the humorous aspects of Burns's love poetry. The eighteenth-century adaptation of sentiment to comedy, as well as the Scottish vernacular tradition, afford... Read more

In the following essay, Bentman contends that Burns's poetry is a significant part of British literary history, despite his declining popularity in recent decades. Robert Burns's poet... Read more

Rexroth was one of the leading pioneers in the revival of jazz and poetry in the San Francisco area during the 1940s and 1950s. His early poetry was greatly influenced by the surrealism of André... Read more

In the following excerpt Keith describes Scotland's Golden Age, a time of nationalism and rich intellectual life; Edinburgh's reception of and influence on Burns; and why Burns's ... Read more

In the excerpt below Beaty analyzes Burns's use of humor in his writings about romantic love. Robert Burns's distinction as a love poet stems chiefly from his ability to perceive the ... Read more

Here, Brown describes Burns as a transitional figure bridging the two spheres of oral and literate composition. (That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke,And ken the lingo of the sp'ritual... Read more

In the following excerpt Simpson examines the myth of Burns as an uneducated peasant and the benefits and limitations such an image held for Burns. It was Henry Mackenzie who, in December 1786, wro... Read more

Two Hundred years after his death, Robert Burns' poetry is still read in Ireland, his homeland, and beyond. Burns' ability to celebrate life and reveal life's many heartaches captured and captivated ... Read more