Robert Burns (1759-1796)
National
poet of Scontland, who wrote lyrics and songs in Scots and in English. He was
also famous for his amours (любовные похождения) and
his rebellion (восстание) against orthodox religion (православие) and morality.
Robert Bernes as a poet
Burns
developed rapidly throughout 1784 and 1785 as an “occasional” poet who more and
more turned to verse to express his emotions of love, friendship,
or amusement or his ironical contemplation (размышления) of the
social scene. But these were not spontaneous effusions by an almost
illiterate peasant. Burns was a conscious craftsman; his entries in the
commonplace book that he had begun in 1783 reveal that from the
beginning he was interested in the technical problems of versification.
The farm
was not prospering,
and Burns, harassed by insoluble problems, thought of emigrating. But he first
wanted to show his country what he could do. In the midst of his troubles he
went ahead with his plans for publishing a volume of his poems at the nearby
town of Kilmarnock. It was entitled Poems, Chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect and appeared on July 31, 1786. Its success was
immediate and overwhelming. Simple country folk and sophisticated Edinburgh
critics alike hailed it, and the upshot was that Burns set out for
Edinburgh on November 27, 1786, to be lionized, patronized, and showered with
well-meant but dangerous advice.
The
Kilmarnock volume was a remarkable mixture. It included a handful of first-rate
Scots poems: “The Twa Dogs,” “Scotch Drink,” “The Holy Fair,” “An Address to
the Deil,” “The Death and Dying Words of Poor Maillie,” “To a Mouse,” “To a
Louse,” and some others, including a number of verse letters addressed to
various friends. There were also a few Scots poems in which he was unable to
sustain his inspiration or that are spoiled by a confused purpose. In addition,
there were six gloomy and histrionic poems in English, four songs, of which
only one, “It Was Upon a Lammas Night,” showed promise of his future greatness
as a song writer, and what to contemporary reviewers seemed the stars of the
volume, “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” and “To a Mountain Daisy.”
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