Work record
Poems and Songs of Robert Burns
Robert BurnsPoems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns (1786–1796)Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, the Gutenberg edition attached here, gathers in chronological order the poems and songs of Scotland's national poet from his teenage verses of the 1770s to the songs he was still writing in the months before his…1786-1796 · 18th Century · Poetry · English
Abstract
Background. Burns grew up on poor Ayrshire farms under a devout father, read widely, and absorbed the folk songs and older Scots verse of his region. A subscription volume printed in Kilmarnock when he was twenty-seven made his name, and Edinburgh society briefly lionised him.
Content. This edition runs from adolescent love songs and illness-time prayers through the satires and verse letters of the Mossgiel years, the animal addresses and domestic scenes of the first book, the haggis and Halloween pieces, the long comic witch tale composed for an antiquary, and finally the great harvest of national songs: farewell, reunion, love in youth and age, Bannockburn and human equality.
Form. Burns favours the six-line stanza of earlier Scots makars, octosyllabic couplets and ballad quatrains, mixing dialect with polished English.
Themes. Across the whole collection Burns returns to the dignity of the poor, the life of the farm, friendship, love in youth and age, Scotland's past, and the gap between true and false religion. He is tender toward animals and children, merciless toward pious pretence, and honest about pleasure and its costs, including his own failures, which several poems openly reflect.
For students. Select, do not assign whole: preview drinking songs and bawdy pieces, and start with the separately listed school poems.
Key figures
- Robert Burns: Poet, farmer and exciseman
- James Johnson: Editor of The Scots Musical Museum
- George Thomson: Editor of Select Scottish Airs
- Francis Grose: Antiquary whose request for a witch tale produced Tam o' Shanter
Summary
Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, the Gutenberg edition attached here, gathers in chronological order the poems and songs of Scotland's national poet from his teenage verses of the 1770s to the songs he was still writing in the months before his death in 1796. It is the best single place to read Burns in full. His career as a poet began with Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, printed at Kilmarnock in 1786, which included The Twa Dogs, The Holy Fair, Address to the Deil, The Cotter's Saturday Night, To a Mouse, To a Louse and To a Mountain Daisy. The Edinburgh edition of 1787 added Address to a Haggis and other pieces. Later came Tam o' Shanter (1791) and the hundreds of songs he wrote or repaired for The Scots Musical Museum and George Thomson's Select Scottish Airs, including Auld Lang Syne, John Anderson, My Jo, Ae Fond Kiss, A Red, Red Rose, Scots Wha Hae and A Man's a Man for A' That. Burns writes in a mixture of Scots and English. His Scots poems are full of farm life, animals, kirk and market, and his songs range from love lyrics to drinking songs and patriotic anthems. He also wrote prayers and psalm paraphrases from times of illness, and sharp satires on self-righteous piety in the strict Calvinist party of the Kirk, above all Holy Willie's Prayer. The volume is not a children's book. It includes bawdy and drinking pieces, verses about Burns's own children born outside marriage, and The Jolly Beggars, a cantata of vagrants. Teachers should choose from it, beginning with the widely taught poems listed above, which are also in the library as separate works. Read in selection, it shows a poet of great tenderness, humour and moral seriousness who was also a sinner, and whom Christian readers can honour honestly, as Carlyle tried to do.
Virtues in this work
Plot or Argument
- Early songs and prayers (1771-1784)
Love songs to local lasses, John Barleycorn, and prayers and psalm paraphrases written in illness and anguish.
- The Kilmarnock poems (1785-1786)
Holy Willie's Prayer, Halloween, To a Mouse, The Cotter's Saturday Night, Address to the Deil, The Twa Dogs, To a Louse and Epistle to a Young Friend.
- Edinburgh and after (1786-1788)
Address to a Haggis, A Winter Night, and Auld Lang Syne, sent to the Scots Musical Museum.
- Ellisland (1788-1791)
John Anderson, My Jo and Tam o' Shanter, written for Francis Grose's Antiquities of Scotland.
- Dumfries songs (1791-1796)
Ae Fond Kiss, Highland Mary, Scots Wha Hae, A Red, Red Rose and A Man's a Man for A' That, among hundreds of songs.
Lessons
Reading a whole poet
A chronological collection shows a writer growing and changing. Students can watch Burns move from farm verse to national song.
- What changes between the early poems and the late songs?
- Which themes stay constant?
- Why read a poet in order?
Satire and sincerity
Holy Willie's Prayer mocks a self-righteous elder who prays for his neighbours' ruin, while The Cotter's Saturday Night honours real piety. Burns attacks false religion more than faith itself.
- How does Holy Willie's prayer differ from the cotter's?
- Is satire of religious pretence a service to faith?
- Compare Jesus's parable in Luke 18:9-14.
Honouring a flawed poet
Burns's life included drink and sexual sin, and some poems reflect it. The collection asks how to receive great art from a fallen man.
- What does Carlyle say about judging Burns?
- How should Christians speak of flawed artists?
- Which poems best show his virtues?
Context
Burns wrote in the Scottish Lowlands of the late eighteenth century, when Scots was giving way to English as the language of print and the Kirk was divided between strict Auld Licht and moderate New Licht parties. He inherited a living tradition of Scots poetry from Allan Ramsay and Robert Fergusson.
Composition
The Kilmarnock edition (1786) sold out within weeks; the Edinburgh edition (1787) made him a celebrity. From 1787 to 1796 he devoted himself mostly to song for Johnson and Thomson. This Gutenberg edition arranges the poems by year with brief headnotes and footnotes.
Reception
Burns became the national poet of Scotland; Burns Suppers on 25 January honour him worldwide, and Carlyle, Wordsworth and Keats all paid tribute to him.
Comparisons
- Essay on Burns
Carlyle's 1828 essay on Burns, the classic Victorian appraisal of the poet and his faults.
- Lyrical Ballads
Wordsworth and Coleridge's 1798 volume, which, like Burns, brought the speech of country people into poetry.
- Olney Hymns
Cowper and Newton's evangelical hymns of the same decades, for contrast with Burns's religious poems.
- Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Gray's Elegy, which Burns quoted and admired.
Quotes
Frequently cited
“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley”
Frequently cited
“O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us”
Frequently cited
“The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that”
“And “Let us worship God!” he says with solemn air”
For Students
A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.
Reading Guide
Watch for
- How Burns moves between Scots and English, often within a poem.
- Poems addressed to animals and flowers: mouse, louse, mountain daisy, the auld mare.
- Satire of false piety (Holy Willie's Prayer, The Holy Fair) versus honour of real piety (The Cotter's Saturday Night).
- The flood of songs after 1787 and their tunes.
- Burns's prayers written in illness and anguish in the early 1780s.
Key terms and names
- Scots
- The speech of Burns's Ayrshire, heard in words like bonie, unco, bairns, ken and auld lang syne; in To a Mouse the line Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie shows how a few Scots forms change the sound of an English sentence.
- Kilmarnock edition
- Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), Burns's first book.
- Auld Licht / New Licht
- Strict Calvinist and moderate parties in the eighteenth-century Church of Scotland.
- Burns stanza
- Six-line stanza rhymed aaabab with short fourth and sixth lines.
- Scots Musical Museum
- James Johnson's six-volume song collection (1787-1803), to which Burns gave hundreds of songs.
- Burns Supper
- Annual celebration on Burns's birthday, 25 January, with poems, songs and haggis.
Seminar Questions
- Comprehension What was the Kilmarnock edition, and what poems did it include?
- Comprehension What work occupied Burns most after 1787?
- Interpretation How does Burns treat religion in Holy Willie's Prayer and in The Cotter's Saturday Night?
- Interpretation What does Burns's use of Scots add to his poems?
- Interpretation Which poems show him at his most tender, and which at his most comic?
- Big Question How should we receive great art from a person whose life we cannot approve?
Faith Connections
- Luke 18:9-14 (Scripture)
The Pharisee and the tax collector: Jesus's parable is the best gloss on Holy Willie's Prayer.
- Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (Scripture)
Teach God's words at home; The Cotter's Saturday Night shows this practice.
- Romans 3:23 (Scripture)
All have sinned; a check on both whitewashing Burns and condemning him alone.
- Thomas Carlyle, Essay on Burns (Great Conversation)
Carlyle's attempt to praise genius while naming moral failure; in this library.
Logic and Rhetoric
Central argument: Burns gives poetic dignity to the poor, the creatures and the songs of Scotland; he satirises false religion and honours sincere piety; his work, read in selection and honestly, shows great gifts and real failings.
Rhetorical device: dialect as register. Burns writes farm scenes and comedy in Scots and turns to formal English for solemn or devotional passages, as in The Cotter's Saturday Night.
Debate: Resolved: that Burns's satire of the Kirk helped rather than harmed Scottish faith.
Memory Work
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley
O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us
Writing Prompts
Essay: Choose three poems from different periods of Burns's life and show what changes and what remains in his art.
Comparison with Essay on Burns: Test Carlyle's claims about Burns's sincerity against three poems from this collection.
Creative Prompts
- Classroom
Each student chooses one poem not in the class anthology, reads it, and presents a two-minute introduction with a glossary of five words.
- Essay
Compare Holy Willie's Prayer with the cotter's family prayer: what does Burns think true religion is?
- Poetry
Write a Burns stanza poem about a moment of farm, garden or household work.
- Classroom
Plan a school Burns Supper programme of clean, widely taught poems and songs.
Further Reading
- Essay on Burns, Thomas Carlyle
In this library.
- The Scots Musical Museum, James Johnson (ed.)
- Life of Robert Burns, John Gibson Lockhart
Early nineteenth-century life (1828).
Verification notes
Full Gutenberg #1279 text with editorial headnotes and footnotes kept; three transcription slips in To a Mouse and The Cotter's Saturday Night corrected. HS preview: the collection includes bawdy songs, drinking songs, verses about children born outside marriage, The Jolly Beggars cantata, and satire of clergy; teachers should select. The famous poems are also separate library works.
No verification flags recorded.