Summary:
Provides a short description of Robert Burns' life and reveals his triumphs over adversity. Examines several of his works. Demonstrates how certain of his own hinderances affected and shine through in his works
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 the minds and ears of his readers. The emotional intensity of his poetry finds its roots in his childhood with its harsh poverty, and his formal and informal educational background.
Born on January 25th of the year 1759 in Alloway--just outside of Ayr--of the great country Scotland, to William Burnes and Agnes Brown, Robert Burns was a farmer boy who followed in his father's footsteps and became an agricultural man. During his childhood and adolescent years most of his learning was from his father, but because his father stressed education so much he did attend a formal school for one year. At the age of fifteen, Burns wrote his first poem, and three years later in 1777 he was forced to move to another farm with his family. Before he became an adult, seven more siblings entered the world, leaving him the oldest of eight.
Burns came from a poverty stricken household. He had little to no money at almost all times, he grew up as an ordinary rural farmer; a common man. Being that he was a common man, it is not only astounding that he became such a successful poet, but because of his history in impoverishment, he had the innate ability to speak with a voice that everyone could hear. This is most clearly visible in the poem Tam O'Shanter:
"When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate;
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While we sit bousin, at the nappy,
And gettin fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm."
The entire poem, which is pages long, is a night description of his hometown, Alloway and also the nearby more popular town Ayr. It discusses drink of the cheapest kind, namely a Scottish whiskey, Cutty Sark, and living in the neighborhood; in short, the way Burns grew up until he moved to Irvine on his first business voyage.
As previously mentioned, his first out of home venture was to Irvine, Scotland; he attempted and failed at starting a business of his own. Upon returning home however, he became deeply involved in his first romantic relationship, which yielded nine illegitimate children; this was the first physically marking appearance of his sexual promiscuity. He began to explore drink much more, though as his friend Syme reports, "He loved wine and would take it freely and in considerable quantities but I never saw him brutally drunk--I have seen gentlemen more drunk than I ever saw Burns." But more thank drink, he loved women; this was not only demonstrated in his relationships, but also apparent in his poetry which revealed a side of romanticism that was not met until the famous
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William Wordsworth reared his head in the poetic world who became popular about the same time Burns passed away.
"Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin' ferlie"
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely
Owre gauze and lace,
Tho'faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner,
Detested, shunned by saint an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her --
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body."
The preceding excerpt is from a poem titled To A Louse, by Burns. These two small stanzas only discuss one woman out of the three in this work. There are other poems such as The Lass That Made The Bed To Me,
"Upon the morrow when we raise,
I thank'd her for her courtesie;
But aye she blush'd and aye she sigh'd,
And said, "Alas, ye've ruin'd me."
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I clasp'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne,
While the tear stood twinklin' in her e'e;
I said, "My lassie, dinna cry,
For ye aye shall make the bed to me." "
This poem is much more detailed than the earlier one; it takes place chronologically after a night spent with a woman who, before the night was over, was a virgin. Burns wrote many other poems both describing concepts and objects sex-oriented not often discussed, and also many poems that were purely romantic; the kinds of romantic verses he would read to a woman with expectations to be able to write one of these more detailed poems later. This poem mentions the consumption of wine in the second verse, this is one of the first instances when wine is mentioned in any of his poems, but it becomes a prominent topic as time goes by. This in the eighteenth century might cover a good deal (qtd. in Fitzhugh 10).
But before any of these poems became popular, they were first released in Burns' Kilmarnock volume titled Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Fitzhugh claims, "The dramatic climax of Burns' life was the 1786-88 period of his Kilmarnock volume and his Edinburgh residence" (191). Burns wrote several books of poetry, including three collections, 4 books of verse, notes of Scottish song, and a journal of a tour in the Highlands made in 1787. His first edition, Kilmarnock was published to raise money so he could go to Jamaica, and Fitzhugh asserts that it was to escape paternity claims and his nine illegitimate children--later in his life he did take full responsibility for the children because the Kilmarnock earned him a very large sum of money (6). The world was just
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about ripe for the Romantic period, and Burns was getting a head start by releasing these types of poems. Being a common man, however, means most of his poems speak about feelings and emotions that every common man can relate to; "Burns is throughout the spokesman for ordinary men and women" claims Vinson (163). Burns became so popular throughout Scotland so quickly, like a flash fire his poems spread throughout and quickly moved onto other countries and became greatly popular in England and eventually all of Europe.
Fitzhugh analyzed his life and events and figured that "Parish Squabbles and windy preachers amused him, and petty parish tyranny infuriated him, especially when provoked by his own behavior" "But in general he envied those above him and spoke bitterly of patronizing superiors, privileged dullness, and class discrimination. He preferred honest worth to birth and breeding" (15). This clearly reveals his views, like every other common man, he was not on the friendliest of terms with Nobles.
Unlike his father, Burns decided to escape the farming and rural life, and moved to Dumfries where he became an excise tax collector--this is where most of his poems were written, and where he died in 1796. Burns' poems were powerful, original, and very convicting, so much so that all of his country had renowned him as the greatest poet of Scotland, but he preferred to call himself the "Scotch Bard." Though he only lived for 37 years, the literature he left behind created a wake and set precedents for future romantic poems.
Fitzhugh explains why Burns became so popular: "Burns turned his poverty-stricken life, and the affairs of obscure Mauchline parish, into a splendid body of poems
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chiefly in the Scottish dialect" (1). One of Burns primary influences into his literature was his upbringing as a simple, unbridled common man. Because he was raised as a farmer boy, unlike most other poets who were aristocrats and artists from birth, he learned about life in the light that most people do, not the nobles or even the merchants, but the way the peasants and slaves of labor saw life. Because of this he could relate to the common man better than most of who may have attempted to previously do so. The poem In The Character Of A Ruined Farmer deals with just such a life:
"The sun he is sunk in the west,
All creatures retired to rest,
While here I sit, all sore beset,
With sorrow, grief, and woe:
And it's O, fickle Fortune, O!"
This poem talks about the normal average day of a farmer, and it continues to explain how the nobles sleep, while I, the worker, watch with Misery--Misery the emotion takes the form of an actual person in this poem--the storm during the night. Comfort is of no avail, except in death, the poem continues to explain, and that there are no more things he has to live for, friendless, forsaken, and forlorn, as the last few lines of the poem read.
The freedoms granted to him as a child had a great deal to with his upbringing, and hence, his later literature. As a son of a farmer he was granted the freedom to roam, think, and write. Established by Vinson, "This concept of liberty echoes through Burns's poems, songs, and letters, just as it concerned him practically, and indiscreetly throughout his life" (163). He sings the praises of being able to think freely rather than being brought
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up by completely set values and instructions, and though his upbringing was strict, it was still Padgett explains, "Burns' upbringing was strict, but fair, and very heavily influenced by the Church of Scotland" (177).
The previous quote also brings up another influence into Burns' life and literature: the Church of Scotland. The Church of Scotland, however, cannot be listed without its corresponding influence on the author, his sexual promiscuity. Because of his nine illegitimate children, he was censured by the Church, and while this may seem to quiet someone down, it enlivened Burns to write about the Church. Vinson critiques "The main target of the young Burns's satirical anger was the Church of Scotland, which in his day still endeavored to exercise a depressing and restrictive influence over even the most private aspects of everyday life" (162). Although Burns may have despised the Church, his affiliation with God is simple to see in the rendition of The First Six Verses Of The Nineteenth Psalm Versified by Robert Burns:
"O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
Of all the human race!
Whose strong right hand has ever been
Their stay and dwelling place! "
His high respect and hold for God is a large place in Burns' heart. But along with poems to describe his strong feelings about the Church of Scotland are his poems about a few of the Calvinistic deadly sins.
Burns' ideas were influenced in many ways by his childhood, and his adolescence but what made him so attractive was his intuitive word choice in that he always knew
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what words fit the best and where to put them. Lindsay claims that his most novel influence is his Scottish tongue and diction, "He took existing stanza forms and the Scots tongue as shaped for the purposes of Colloquial poetry by his predecessors, notably Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson, and applied them with sharpened awareness to his own situations" ("Robert Burns: Overview"). Burns' mother tongue was the Scottish Dialect, but he also taught himself French, poor English and a small bit of Latin. All of these languages helped increase his vocabulary and his understanding and appreciation for words. It enhanced his ability to write, and was a very big influence in his writing, though the only real place it held, it allowed him to write well, but did not change any of his ideals or views.
Fitzhugh makes his overall statement on Burns in the first few pages of his book, "Robert Burns was a witty compound of satire, sentiments, and sex, a man of "general talents" and of great personal force" (1). Burns was a great poet, songwriter and bard--in fact, he was the greatest poet, songwriter and bard of Scotland. His primary influences were his background as a poor Irish farmer, which helped him in relating to the everyday common man in his poetry, and his rural upbringing, and other major influences were his sexual promiscuity, which led to his romantic poems and songs, liberal views, which the Church of Scotland, and his ineffable disgust with the born-wealthy and upper classes.
Burns wrote about what he lived. His opinions and his experiences became the heart of his many poems. It is unfortunate that the life he lived offered very little softener, and as a result, he died young. "Auld Lang Syne" or old times were the life moments that he captured.
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"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'"
Should auld aqcuaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne""
In Burns most famous poem ever, Auld Lang Syne, his offerings to the world are described, or more appropriately, his offerings to Ireland. It was this poem that made Burns who he is, not any of his others. We are what our past makes of us, and Ireland remembers its past. To this day on the 25th of every January, on his birthday, a supper is partaken in to honor him in his homeland of Scotland.
