An Approach to Burns

Abstract

Robert Burns was born a farmer’s son in 1759, the year before George III was crowned king of Great Britain. He was fifteen when he wrote his first poem (typically, a love lyric), seventeen when the Continental Congress carried the American Declaration of Independence, twenty-seven when he published his first volume of verse, thirty when Parisians sacked the Bastille and set the French Revolution in motion. His poetry and personality are intimately connected with the politics of his period; though controversial and complex as a poet and person he has come close to deification. Thirty-seven when he died as exciseman in Dumfries, Burns has become probably the best-known poet in the world: statues have been raised to Burns not only in Scotland but in London, Albany, Barre, Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Fredericton, Toronto, Adelaide, Ballarat, Melbourne, Sydney and Dunedin. American Presidents sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, Soviet schoolchildren chant ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That’. His verse has been translated into all the major languages of the world; a recent paperback of Chinese translations of his poems went into a first edition of 100,000.