Course 6

The Scottish Poets

1. Robert Burns
1759-1796

Robert Burns (according to Cambridge History of Literature) was among

those poets who according to a favourite myth of later eighteenth-century
primitivism exponents, were considered among the natural poets who just like
birds warble1 their native woodnotes, independent of art or literary tradition.
This kind of poets was sought among peasants and proletarians and whose caste
or rural habitation was thought to protect them from the artificialities of civilized
life and culture. In 1786, Robert Burns published his first volume of Poems,
Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect and was at once hailed2 by the literati3 of
Edinburgh as an illustration of the natural genius, ‘Heaven-taught plowman’
whose poems were spontaneously overflowing with native feelings. Burns
enjoyed playing the role of the poet by instinct, as matter of fact he was well-
read, largely self-educated man, endowed with quick intelligence that enabled
him take advantage of the limited opportunities. He was different from the
contemporary conventions of decayed English neoclassicism and he succeeded
in being so due to his deliberate craftsmanship, turning to two earlier traditions
for his models: the oral tradition of Scottish folklore and folk song and on the
other hand, the highly developed literary tradition of poems written in Scots
dialect of English.
William Burnes (as he himself spelled his name) the poet’s father was a
God-fearing and hardworking farmer of Ayrshire in southwest of Scotland, died
in 1784, unable to make a go in the period of hard times and high rents. Robert
and his brother, Gilbert had to do the toil of men, even young boys and Robert
began to show the heart trouble of which he was to die later in maturity.
Although he had a father who had the Scottish esteem for education and allowed
his boys attend school whenever possible, Burns educated himself in literature,
theology, politics and philosophy. When he fell in love when he was 15, he was
inspired to write his first song. He said: “Thus with me began Love and Poesy”.
In the years of maturity the poet was to develop both these endeavours. He had a
lot of amorous affairs of which in 1785 he fathered the first of his illegitimate
children. When he published the Kilmarnock edition at the age of twenty-seven,
he had written all, except for his long poems.
The Kilmarnock volume (named after the town where it was published) is
one of the most remarkable of the first volumes in the British literature and it

1
To sing with trills and often changing notes (Encarta Dictionary)
2
Acclaim, praise or approve somebody or something with enthusiasm (idem 1)
3
Highly educated people/ people deeply involved in literature (idem 1)

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registered an immediate success. The poet was acclaimed as “Caledonia4’s bard”
and lionized5 by the intellectuals when he visited Edinburgh. The poet
demonstrated that he was more than a brilliant conversationalist and debater, yet
his wisdom helped him to resent any hint of contempt or condescension towards
him as a man of low degree. Politically speaking he was an admirer of the
republican revolutions in America and France, while religiously he professed
“the religion of sentiment and reason”.
In 1788, Burns was given a commission as excise officer or tax inspector
and settled down with Jean Armour, a former lover, in Ellisland, near Dumfries,
where he combined his official duty with farming. Then he moved to Dumfries
where he was fairly happy, despite illness and money shortage; he did his
official duties efficiently and was respected by his fellow town people and
esteemed by the superiors; he was a devoted family man and father and gathered
a circle of intimates with which debated different topics. He spent the last twelve
years of life writing songs for the Musical Museum, a collection of Scottish
songs and for Thompson’s Select Collection of original Scottish Airs. He
continued his work until he was on his deathbed.
In terms of English literature Burns may be seen as the greatest of the
eighteenth-century “rustic” poets, whereas for the nineteenth century he was
seen as a successor of Chatterton as the type of poet victimized by a hostile
world. Nevertheless such ideas offer too narrow a view of Burns as he was a
Scottish poet and best regarded in that tradition.
Burns’s best poetry was written in Scots, a northern dialect of English
spoken by rural people and by most of eighteenth-century Scottish gentlefolk. At
a certain moment of his life Burns attempted to write in Standard English, but
the result – except Afton Water – tended to be stilted and conventional. He is
considered to be a pre-romantic, who anticipated Wordsworth. Burns revived the
lyric, exploited the literary forms and legends of folk culture and wrote in the
language spoken by common people. The songs he wrote in the literary forms

4
Caledonia is the Latin name given by the Romans to the land in today's Scotland north of their province of
Britannia, beyond the frontier of their empire. The etymology of the name is probably from a P-Celtic source.
Its modern usage is as a romantic or poetic name for Scotland as a whole, comparable with Hibernia for Ireland
and Britannia for the whole of Britain. The name may be related to that of a large central Pictish tribe, the
Caledonii, one amongst several in the area and perhaps the dominant tribe, which would explain the binomial
Caledonia/Caledonii.
According to Historia Brittonum the site of the seventh battle of the mythical Arthur was a forest in what is
now Scotland, called Coit Celidon in early Welsh. Traces of such mythology have endured until today in
Midlothian: near the town centre of Edinburgh stands an old volcanic mountain called Arthur's Seat.
The north-west ridge of Schiehallion - the "fairy hill of the Caledonians"
There are other hypotheses regarding the origin of Caledonia (and Scotia). According to Moffat (2005) the
name derives from caled, the P-Celtic word for "hard". This suggests the original meaning may have been "the
hard (or rocky) land". Keay and Keay (1994) state that the word is "apparently pre-Celtic".
The name of the Caledonians can be found in toponymy, such as Dùn Chailleann, the Scottish Gaelic word for
the town of Dunkeld meaning "fort of the Caledonii", and possibly in that of the mountain Sìdh Chailleann, the
"fairy hill of the Caledonians".
5
To make somebody into a celebrity or treat somebody like a celebrity (idem 1)

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favoured by the early eighteenth-century poets are concerned with men and
manners. They include brilliant satire in a variety of modes, fine verses to
friends and fellow poets and one masterpiece (seriocomic) narrative, Tom
O’Shanter. He is acclaimed to be, next to Pope, the greatest master of these
literary types in the eighteenth-century. There is a difference between the two.
Pope turned for his models to Horace and to neoclassic English tradition, while
Burns turned to native tradition, through this continuing the tradition of other
Scottish poets, though much improved.
What it is worth mentioning is that Burns’s songs, about 300, he expresses
the emotion of the moment, evoked by all standard lyrics: love, drink, work,
friendship, patriotism and bawdry6. Burns is not only the Scotland’s national
poet, but of all the English-speaking people; his songs express sympathy for
humans of all types.

To a Mouse

On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785

Wee, sleeket7, cowran, tim’rous beastie,

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering8 brattle9!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle10!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion

Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles11, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun12 live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave13,

6
Coarse and obscene language (idem 1)
7
sleek = smooth
8
backbitting
9
loath = reluctant, unwilling to do something
10
plough staff
11
sometimes
12
must

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 An’ never miss ’t!
sleek
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly14 wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big15 a new ane,
O’ foggage16 green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell17 an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,

An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter18 past
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble19

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But20 house or hald,
To thole21 the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane22,

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear23!
13
reminder
14
feeble
15
build
16
coarse grass
17
bitter
18
cutter blade
19
stubble = short stalks in the field
20
without
21
endure
22
not alone
23
gloomy

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 An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Analyse the poem by answering the questions:

1. How does the poet address to the mouse?
2. Can we establish a comparison with the world of men?
3. In what way? Does it remind of destruction and loss, insecurity or
anxiety of men?
4. Does Burns raise the mouse to the level of humans?
5. In what way can the poem be analysed philosophically?

2. SIR WALTER SCOTT

The writer was born in Edinburgh, but because some health problems lived
with his grandparents on their farm in the Scottish border (north of the border
with England). The region was rich with folklore and ballad, much of it
associated with the warfare between England and Scotland. During his
childhood he listened eagerly to the stories about old events and battles. Thus he
acquired from an early age what later he was to exploit in his prose fiction – a
sense of history, a sense of place and a sense of past which is kept alive in the
oral tradition.
Scott’s father was a lawyer and he himself trained to become a lawyer, in
1799, he became sheriff (local judge) of Selkirkshire.
Scott was an avid reader from early childhood. He read ballads and poetic
romances, which he memorized easily. He started his literary career first as a
German translator of ballad imitations, then writer of these imitations, then
collector and editor of Border ballads. He then passed to compose long narrative
poems, but soon he gave up saying that “Byron beat me” in writing poetry. He
kept writing lyrical poems which he included in his novels. His first novel was
Waverly, where he deals with the Jacobite rebellion. In this novel he introduced
a motif which is to be found in all his novels: “the protagonist mediates between
a heroic but violent old world that can no longer survive and an emerging new
world that has something to learn from the past it rejects” (CHEL: 401).This
recognition of continuity-in-change between the past and present made Scott the
founder of the ‘true historical novel’. Scott published his novels anonymously,
but he was finally recognized. He became internationally famous. In 1820 he
was made a baronet. As a poet he is known for Lay of the Last Minstrel.

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 Breathes There the Man... From the Lay of the Last Minstrel

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures24 swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf25,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit26 fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

Read the poem and answer these questions:

1. Who is the character of the poem?
2. How does the poet speak about him?
3. Do they have something in common?

24
overwhelming happiness (Encarta Dictionary)
25
money or wealth
26
penalty for wrongdoing (idem)