Robert Burns and Poetry

April 24, 2008 by ScottishKyle

Robert Burns, sometimes referred to as the national bard of Scotland, was born January 25, 1759 in the town of Alloway, South Ayrshire, Scotland. He was a prolific writer who composed over 600 poems and songs. Robert Burns was important to Scotland because he renewed a sense of nationalism and pride in the country and immortalized Scottish history and culture through his works.

Robert Burns was born into a poor tenant farming family in the lowlands of south-west Scotland. His father, William Burness (1721-1784) was a tenant farmer from Kincardineshire, Scotland, and his mother, Agnes Broun (1732-1820) was from Ayrshire.
Although the Burns family was poor he received 3 years of formal schooling, tutoring, and by the time of manhood he had achieved knowledge of English, French and Latin.
From an early age, Burns read and was influenced by the many works of notable writers such as Homer and Shakespeare.

In addition to being an intellectual, Burns also was renowned for his charm and wit, especially with women. In 1786, after numerous love affairs including a relationship with Elizabeth Paton with whom he had his first child, he fell in love with Jean Armour who became pregnant with twins. He wanted to marry Jean Armour but could not obtain her father's permission. After publishing a volume of his poems called Kilmarnock in 1786 to raise money to emigrate to the West Indies, he had unexpected success with his poetry and instead decided to move to Edinburgh. As a result of his fame and publishing success, Jean Armour's family granted permission for them to marry in 1788.

Robert Burns wrote about subjects from his everyday life, including poems about love, nature and Scottish history, and culture. He wrote his poems and songs in English, but also in the Scottish dialect which helped keep the Scottish dialect alive in an age when it was going into disuse. He romanticized aspects of Scotland through his writings and created a renewed sense of national pride in Scotland. The Scots had lost some of their national identity and pride as a result of the 1707 Union with England and the failed Jacobite rising of 1746. (Note that he always supported the Jacobite's even though he was born in the age after the Battle of Culloden and was a lowlander through and through)

Burns's poem, Farewell to the Highlands, is about the emotions of the people who left the Highlands of Scotland during the Highland Clearances in the 18th century. The Highland Clearances was a violent period where tenant farmers were forced to leave their land and emigrate to North America and other countries. The poem, written in 1789, is included as one of Burns's texts in Robert Burns: Selected Poems, edited by Carol McGuirk, and reads as follows:

Farewell to the Highlands

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a chasing the deer;
A chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My hearts in the Highlands wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the north,
The birth place of Valour, the country of Worth,
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud pouring floods.

My hearts in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

The poem is quite popular among Robert Burns's works. The poem is set to the slow and sad tune of The Musket Salute which reinforces the strong emotions of the poem. Burns shows his style in the poem by repeating comparable words to increase the emphasis for example, the roe and wild deer; wander and rove; straths and green vallies; forests and wild hanging woods; and torrents and floods. Burns's use of very descriptive words also helps the reader to visualize the landscape, the action, and the person's longing. This poem is very typical of Burns's work because it speaks about nature's beauty and the very strong emotions that people have for home.

Robert Burns had a short life dying at age 37 in 1796. He achieved international literary fame although not financial success during his lifetime. He continued to be revered by Scots as a great poet. In 1844 at a Burns Festival in Scotland around 80,000 were in attendance. His poetry immortalized Scottish history and culture for the Scots. Today, Robert Burns is considered to be one of the world's greatest poets because anyone can relate to most of his poems from any walk of life.