Robert Burns was, in his own age, and remains to this day, Scotland’s national poet. Burns Suppers are held throughout the world on the day of his birth, and the Scottish Parliament reconvened on July 1st 1999 with a rendition of the egalitarian ‘Is There for Honest Poverty’ (1795), which expresses the wish that ‘man to man the world o’er/Shall brothers be for a’ that’. A ‘protean’ poet in the fullest sense, Burns’s work ranges over song, satire, comedy, epic, classicism, pastoral, politics and religion, and the whole is injected with a dynamism never equalled in Scots since his death.
Burns’s work has reached such a level of celebrity that many of his words have become ingrained in the public psyche. Songs such as ‘Auld Lang Syne’ (1796) and poems including ‘To a Haggis’ (1787) are ubiquitously quoted, and their endurance is testament to their universal nature.
During his lifetime, Burns became notorious for his anti-Calvinist stance, and many of his poems satirise the gloomy, disciplinarian Auld Licht doctrine, whilst affirming the gentler, more forgiving New Licht Christianity. In celebrated poems such as ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’ (published posthumously in 1801), ‘The Holy Fair’ (1786) and ‘Address to the Unco Guid’ (1787), Burns exposed Calvinism’s inherent hypocrisy, which he had experienced first hand.
In ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’, Burns uncovers the absurdity of the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination: Willie addresses a Calvinist God who ‘Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,/A’ for thy glory,/And no for ony guid or ill/They’ve done afore thee!’ Willie’s words of ‘damnation’, ‘hell’ and ‘damned devils’ reveal Calvinism’s objective: to stamp on human pleasure, and to instil a fear of God into its followers. Burns portrays Calvinism’s contradictions as ridiculous, advocating instead a religion based on innate virtue: in ‘Epistle to a Young Friend’ (1786), he counsels that ‘where ye feel your Honor grip,/Let that ay be your border’.
Burns’s humble origins and poetic talent were the catalyst for Henry Mackenzie’s labelling him as ‘heaven-taught ploughman’. Although he is forced, by financial need, to fulfil this role, the description is an injustice to Burns. Despite his evident education and genius, Burns claims, in ‘Epistle to John Lapraik, an Old Scotch Bard’ (1786), that he is untutored. He asserts that ‘I am nae Poet, in a sense,/But just a Rhymer like by chance,/An’ hae to learning nae pretence’, while in the same stanza referring to his ‘Muse’; betraying his classical education.
His rise from poverty to the heights of poetic fame invest his democratic drive with even more power: in poems such as ‘The Vision’ (1786), ‘Love and Liberty: A Cantata’ (1801) and ‘The Twa Dogs, A Tale’ (1786), Burns celebrates the universal worth of mankind, and even animals, regardless of rank. In ‘Love and Liberty’, Burns disregards the pretences of court and church, and questions the affectation of class: ‘What is title? what is treasure?/What is reputation’s care?/If we lead a life of pleasure,/’Tis no matter how or where!’
One of Burns’s best and most famous works is undoubtedly ‘Tam o’Shanter. A Tale’ (1791). The poem covers such territory as the Scottish tradition of festivity, Augustan generalisation, Enlightenment debate, the classical epic, the supernatural tale and the great theme of fragile but simple human dignity. Tam is at once the drunken Scotsman and epic hero, who forgoes all ‘reason’ for an expression of pure human instinct at the sight of the ‘souple jade’ witch in Alloway kirk. In his simple exclamation, ‘Weel done, Cutty-sark!’, Tam is a celebration of natural human feeling in the face of the Enlightenment’s emphasis on sombre logic. In this fast-paced narrative, Burns is the folk-tale ‘chapman’, neoclassicist poet and teller of both his ‘queerest stories’ and ‘tale o’ truth’. ‘Tam o’Shanter’ is one of Burns’s greatest achievements, and stands as evidence of his multi-voiced and inclusive poetic persona.
Burns is esteemed as a prolific songwriter. Working with an established song tradition, Burns fits new words to existing melodies, and creates many classics of Scottish song. ‘Green Grow the Rashes’ (1787), ‘Afton Water’ (1792), ‘A Red, Red Rose’ (1796) and ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ (1792) are unrivalled expressions of love, while ‘O’er the Water to Charlie’ (1788) and ‘Charlie He’s My Darling’ (1796) are evidence of Burns’s political engagement with the Jacobite cause.
As well as his accepted achievement in poetry and song, Burns’s letters are justly renowned as pieces of literature, and provide a better insight into the man and his methods than any biographical or critical piece. Written in commanding, diamond-cut prose, Burns’s genius is as apparent in his letters as in any of his verse.
Burns is no simple ‘heaven-taught ploughman’. His mutable poetic persona ranges the gamut of literary expression, emotion and experience. His unparalleled fame, as compelling in the twenty-first century as in the eighteenth, demonstrates him to be a poet who has special meaning, not just in Scotland, but also throughout the world.
