Robert Burns
(1759–1796)

No other name is more synonymous with the title "The voice of Scotland" than that of the poet of Robert Burns. A farmer and farmer's son, Burns was born in Alloway, in Ayrshire, and spent his early years in the two-bedroom clay cottage his father had built. Although poverty prevented Burns from receiving a formal education, with his father's encouragement he read widely, studying the Bible, Shakespeare, and Alexander Pope on his own. His mother, though herself illiterate, instilled in him a love of Scottish folk songs, legends and proverbs.

In 1786, Burns published his first collection of poems at a small local press. Although the collection, which included "To a Mouse," was successful, Burns only first came to the attention of the public at large the following year when a fuller collection, Poems: Chiefly in Scottish, was published at Edinburgh. He was invited to the Scottish capital, where he was swept into the social scene, if only as something of a rustic curiosity. He left Edinburgh in 1788, to explore the English border region and the Highlands.

Later that year he married Jean Armour, his sweetheart of many years, and returned to the farm to work the land. The soil proved unproductive, however, and so to the supplement his income he took a position with the Excise Service—Scotland's department of taxation. All the while he continued to refine his poetic style, turning out some of his finest verses. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, he became an outspoken supporter of the republican cause, a move that threatened his job and alienated many of his friends. His spirit low and his health taxed by a weak heart he had had since childhood, Burns contracted a fever from which he never recovered. Thousands of people from all social levels followed his coffin to the grave, and he was acclaimed the national poet of Scotland.

Burns's numerous adventures produced many lyrics that figure among the most natural and spontaneous the English language has produced. His poems, written for the most part in dialect, are characterized by innocence, honesty, and simplicity. First and last a people's poet, Burns crafted poetic "melodies" that speak to "the sons and daughters of labor and poverty"—and for them. Though some of the poet's work had its origins in folk tunes, "it is not," as James Douglas wrote, "easy to tell where the vernacular ends and the personal magic begins."

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