Work record

A Man’s a Man for A’ That

Robert Burns

1795 · 18th Century · Poetry · English

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Abstract

Written: 1795
Setting: The revolutionary 1790s; Scotland (Dumfries)
Author: Robert Burns
Country: Kingdom of Great Britain (Scotland, United Kingdom)
Language: Scots
Genre: Political song
Form: Five eight-line stanzas with a refrain
Recommended: Grades 9–12 (Political song; Scots.)

Background. Burns wrote this near the end of his life while serving as an exciseman during the war with France, when radical opinions could cost a man his post. He sent it to Thomson and it circulated without his name.

Content. The song refuses shame to the honest poor. Coarse food and rough clothing do not diminish them; nobility is merely an imprint on metal, while character is the precious substance. A preening aristocrat is laughed at, and princes are reminded that they can bestow titles but not integrity. The closing verse prays for a time when good sense and merit will win everywhere and humanity will live as one fraternity.

Form. The refrain changes its weight in each stanza; plain Scots words carry hard arguments about dignity.

Themes. At its core the lyric is an argument about where dignity comes from. Wealth, dress, ribbons and peerages are outward marks; honesty, sense and independence of mind are inward worth that no monarch can confer. The final stanza widens the claim into a prayer for a world in which merit is honoured everywhere and people treat one another as kin.

For students. Compare its claims with James 2 and Genesis 1:27, and with the 1789 French declaration in this library.

Key figures

The singer: A poor man defending human worth

Summary

A Man's a Man for A' That, also known by its first line Is There for Honest Poverty, is a song Burns wrote in 1795 and sent to George Thomson. It is the fullest statement of his belief in the equal worth of human beings regardless of rank. Every stanza turns on the refrain for a' that, meaning in spite of all that. The first stanza says that the man who hangs his head because he is poor is a coward; we dare be poor for all that. Rank is but the guinea's stamp, the image pressed on a coin; the man is the gold. The second stanza says that though we dine on homely food and wear coarse grey cloth, a man is a man for all that, and the honest man, however poor, is king of men. The third mocks a lord who struts and stares and is worshipped by hundreds: he is only a fool, and the man of independent mind looks and laughs at his ribbons and stars. The fourth says a prince can make a belted knight, a marquis or duke, but cannot make an honest man; sense and worth are higher rank than titles. The last stanza is a prayer: let us pray that it may come, as it will, that sense and worth shall have the first place over all the earth, and that man to man the world over shall be brothers. The song reflects the revolutionary ideas of the 1790s, but its convictions also have deep roots in the Scottish Presbyterian sense of every soul's worth before God. It was sung at the opening of the new Scottish Parliament in 1999, and it remains a touchstone for discussion of human dignity. Students should read it slowly, stanza by stanza, as an argument.

Virtues in this work

Justice: The song demands that people be judged by worth and honesty rather than by rank.
Humility: It mocks pride of rank and the worship of titles.
Honor: It locates true honour in honesty and sense rather than titles.

Plot or Argument

Stanza 1: poverty no shame
Rank is only the stamp on the coin; the man is the gold.
Stanza 2: plain fare
Coarse clothes and plain food do not lessen an honest man, who is king of men.
Stanza 3: the strutting lord
A lord worshipped by many is only a fool; independent minds laugh at his insignia.
Stanza 4: what princes cannot make
Kings can create titles but not honesty; sense and worth outrank titles.
Stanza 5: the prayer
May the day come when sense and worth prevail and all people are brothers.

Characters

The singer, speaker
A poor but proud man defending the worth of the honest poor.

Lessons

The worth of a person
Burns says rank is only the stamp on a coin, while the person is the gold. Worth lies in character, not title.
- What does the guinea image mean?
- What qualities make someone king of men?
- How does James 2:1-5 treat rich and poor?
Related across the library
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- The Three Musketeers, Lesson: Courage and recklessness
  Courage and recklessness. D'Artagnan's father tells him to fear no quarrel and to fight on all occasions, and the young Gascon obeys almost too well. Over the novel his courage becomes more disciplined: he learns to plan, to wait, and to choose fights worth having, as in the council held on the bastion Saint-Gervais.
- Economics in One Lesson, Lesson: The seen and the unseen
  The seen and the unseen. Every policy has visible beneficiaries and less visible costs. Learning to look for the unseen is a basic habit of economic reasoning.
- The Road to Wigan Pier, Lesson: Class prejudice
  Class prejudice. Orwell confesses his own class snobbery as a step toward honesty.
Mockery of pride
The third stanza laughs at a lord who struts. Pride in rank looks foolish to the independent mind.
- Why does Burns mock rather than attack?
- Is all respect for rank wrong?
- What is the difference between honour and pride?
Related across the library
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- The French Revolution: A History, Lesson: Every unit of the masses
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- Latter-Day Pamphlets, Full Text
  have no more to do with it and its delusions and impious deliriums and it has been sitting every day since it may depend upon it at its own peril withal and will have to pay exact damages yet for every day it has so sat Law of veracity What this Popedom had to do by the law of veracity was to give up its own foul galvanic life an offence to gods and men honestly to die and get itself buried Far from this was the thing the poor Pope undertook in regard to it and yet on the whole it was essentially this too Reform...
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  Tawney imagines medicine organised like industrial capitalism, with hospitals as factories, doctors hired at competitive wages and the poor supplied with inferior service or none.
Hope of brotherhood
The song ends with a prayer for universal brotherhood. Students should compare it with the Christian teaching on one family in Christ.
- What is the song's final hope?
- Where does the idea of human brotherhood come from?
- How does Galatians 3:28 compare?
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- Essays, Moral and Political (selection), Lesson: Design institutions for knaves
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Context

In 1795 Britain was at war with revolutionary France, and radical societies demanding reform were being prosecuted for sedition. Burns, a government excise officer, had to be careful about his politics.

Composition

Sent to George Thomson in January 1795 and printed anonymously in a Glasgow periodical that year; Thomson later included it in his collection.

Reception

It became a hymn of democratic movements worldwide and was sung at the opening of the Scottish Parliament on 1 July 1999.

Class / Society Justice Law Virtue Ethics Power / Politics Honor Shame

Comparisons

Scots Wha Hae (Robert Bruce’s March to Bannockburn)
Burns's song of national liberty, to compare with this song of human equality.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
The French declaration of 1789 states equality in legal prose.
The Cotter’s Saturday Night
Burns's earlier poem honouring the poor in their homes.

Quotes

Frequently cited

“The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.”

— Robert Burns, A Man’s a Man for A’ That, Stanza 1 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, A Man’s a Man for A’ That, stanza 1 (1795)
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that Burns on human worth.
Categories, Full Text
subject For man' is predicated of the individual man but is not present in any subject for manhood is not present in the individual man In the same way animal' is also predicated of the individual man but is not present in him Again when a thing is present in a subject though the name may quite well be applied to that in which it is present the definition cannot be applied Yet of secondary substances not only the name but also the definition applies to the subject we should use both the definition of the species...
Selected Short Stories, The Entire Original Maupassant Short Stories
A NEW YEAR'S GIFT FRIEND PATIENCE ABANDONED THE MAISON TELLIER DENIS MY WIFE THE UNKNOWN THE APPARITION VOLUME VIII CLOCHETTE THE KISS THE LEGION OF HONOR THE TEST FOUND ON A DROWNED MAN THE ORPHAN THE BEGGAR THE RABBIT HIS AVENGER MY UNCLE JULES THE MODEL A VAGABOND THE FISHING HOLE THE SPASM IN THE WOOD MARTINE ALL OVER THE PARROT THE PIECE OF STRING VOLUME IX TOINE MADAME HUSSON'S ROSIER THE ADOPTED SON COWARD OLD MONGILET MOONLIGHT THE FIRST SNOWFALL SUNDAYS OF A BOURGEOIS A RECOLLECTION OUR LETTERS THE LOVE...
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Ch. 2
He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain The moral of the whitewashing episode, after Tom has tricked his friends into paying to do his chore.
The House at Pooh Corner, Chapter IX
And then Piglet did a Noble Thing, and he did it in a sort of dream, while he was thinking of all the wonderful words Pooh had hummed about him. Piglet agrees that his own house, which Eeyore has picked out for Owl, is just the house for Owl.

Frequently cited

“That Man to Man, the world o’er, Shall brothers be for a’ that.”

— Robert Burns, A Man’s a Man for A’ That, Stanza 5 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

First Inaugural Address, Lesson: Peacemaker as the highest title
Peacemaker as the highest title. Nixon redefines national honor in terms of peacemaking rather than victory, seeking a peace that is "not victory over any other people." He spoke while more than half a million American troops were in Vietnam, and the war continued until 1973. Students can weigh the promise against the record without dismissing the ideal.
Rerum Novarum, Against the socialist remedy
For every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own. The thesis of Leo's argument for private property, followed by the contrast between man and the animals.
An Essay on Man, Epistle II, line 18
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! The close of the portrait of man as a middle being.
An Essay on Man, Epistle II, lines 1-2
Know, then, thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. The opening of the epistle on man as an individual.
Lex, Rex, Question II
And if all Men be born equally free (as I hope to prove) there is no reason in Nature, why one Man should be King and Lord over another Rutherford denies that any natural superiority makes one man king, so that rule over others must come by consent and positive law.

“The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor, Is king o’ men for a’ that.”

— Robert Burns, A Man’s a Man for A’ That, Stanza 2 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

Shall Turkey Live or Die?, Section on Turkey ('And first of Turkey')
The Christian Church has, as a Church, no possession on earth Part of the argument that the Church's origin at Jerusalem gives Christians no right to possess it.
Shall Turkey Live or Die?, Section on Turkey, answer to the appeal to Sobieski
Not as a brother Christian, but as a brother man Reply to the objection that Christians must treat the Turk only as enemy and persecutor.
Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, A Man’s a Man for A’ That, stanza 1 (1795)
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that Burns on human worth.
Mother Courage and Her Children, Summary
Mother Courage and Her Children follows Anna Fierling, a canteen woman nicknamed Mother Courage, who hauls her covered wagon behind the armies of the Thirty Years' War selling food, drink, boots and belts to soldiers. The play covers twelve years, from 1624 to 1636, in twelve scenes, each introduced by a written caption that tells the audience in advance what will happen. Courage has three children by different fathers: the bold Eilif, the honest and simple Swiss Cheese, and her daughter Kattrin, who is mute. Co...
An Essay on Man, Summary
An Essay on Man is a philosophical poem in heroic couplets that Alexander Pope published anonymously in four parts, called epistles, in 1733 and 1734, addressed to his friend Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke. Pope meant it as the opening of a larger work on human nature and society that he never finished. His stated aim echoes Milton: where Paradise Lost set out to justify the ways of God to men, the Essay proposes to vindicate the ways of God to man, not from Scripture but from reason and the observed order...

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The refrain for a' that and how its meaning shifts.
The coin image in stanza 1.
The lord's ribbons and stars in stanza 3.
The final stanza, which turns the argument into a prayer.

Key terms and names

Guinea: A British gold coin; its stamp shows the king's head.
Gowd: Scots for gold, the true metal under the stamp.
Hoddin grey: Coarse undyed woollen cloth worn by the poor.
Coof: Scots for a fool or dolt.
Bear the gree: Scots for take the prize or have the first place.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension What does the singer say about men who are ashamed of being poor?
Comprehension What can a prince make, and what can he not make?
Interpretation Explain the guinea's stamp metaphor.
Interpretation Why does the refrain fit every stanza?
Interpretation What kind of future does the last stanza pray for?
Big Question On what does human worth finally rest?

Faith Connections

Genesis 1:27 (Scripture)
All people are made in the image of God, the deepest ground for the worth Burns praises.
James 2:1-5 (Scripture)
James forbids favouring the rich man in fine clothes over the poor man in shabby clothes.
1 Samuel 16:7 (Scripture)
Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Rank is only an outward stamp; honesty and sense are the true worth of a person; titles can be granted but character cannot; therefore the honest poor are noble, and the world should come to honour worth over rank.

Rhetorical device: refrain. For a' that, an' a' that closes each stanza and gathers each image into the argument.

Debate: Resolved: that A Man's a Man for A' That rightly rejects respect for rank.

Memory Work

The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.
Stanza 1. A memorable metaphor for human worth.

That Man to Man, the world o’er, Shall brothers be for a’ that.
Stanza 5. The song's closing hope.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace the argument of the song stanza by stanza and evaluate it.

Comparison with Scots Wha Hae (Robert Bruce’s March to Bannockburn): Compare Burns's two political songs: liberty for a nation and worth for every person.

Creative Prompts

Classroom
Divide the class into five groups; each paraphrases one stanza and explains its image.
Essay
Is the song's view of human worth Christian, revolutionary or both? Argue from the text and its date.
Poetry
Write a stanza with your own refrain, on a virtue that matters more than status.