Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is in a “light Scots dialect” of English, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest.
He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.
As well as making original compositions, 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 (the last day of the year), 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 across the world today include “A Red, Red Rose“, “A Man’s a Man for A’ That“, “To a Louse“, “To a Mouse“, “The Battle of Sherramuir“, “Tam o’ Shanter” and “Ae Fond Kiss“.
Early life
Burns was born in Alloway in 1759, in a cottage that his father built. He was the eldest son of tenant farmers William Burnes and Agnes Broun, but despite their modest status Robert’s parents insisted he was educated. He was encouraged to read from an early age, and even attended one year of mathematics schooling.
The young Burns was more interested in things that gave him pleasure – poetry, nature, women, drink – than he was in farm work. When his father died in 1784, Robert and his brother Gilbert took over the farm, but within a few years they were in financial trouble. To make matters worse, Burns was already the father of an illegitimate child – the first of his 13 children.
Relationships with women
Burns pursued love as energetically as he did poetry, and his passion for women defined his life and work in equal measure. From his teenage years through the peak of his career, he engaged in many illicit relationships, sometimes overlapping with each other.
However, there was one woman who was a constant in Burns’s adult life: Jean Armour. They would go on to spend most of their lives together, but when they first tried to marry, Armour’s family tore up the contract. Outraged, Burns supposedly tried to flee to the Caribbean with another woman called Mary Campbell (also known as ‘Highland Mary’), but was eventually convinced to stay in Scotland as by then his poems were beginning to attract plenty of attention.
Work & inspiration
Despite his domestic chaos, Burns managed to publish his first collection in the summer of 1786 – it made him a literary superstar at the tender age of 27.
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was the result of an incredible poetic outpouring between 1784 and 1786. It was made up of all manner of works, including poems like ‘To a Mouse’ and ‘Address to the Deil’, that reflected Burns’ upbringing, his connection to rural life and above all his interest in the human condition.
After the success of this first collection, Burns spent some time in Edinburgh before officially marrying Jean Armour in 1788 and moving to Dumfries. In 1790, he penned the great narrative poem Tam o’ Shanter, a mock-heroic tale about a feckless farmer, that was rooted in Burns’s love for Scottish culture. This work immortalized Alloway Auld Kirk, Souter Johnnie and the Brig o’ Doon.
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