Transcript Document

ROBERT BURNS
(25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796)
HIS LIFE
• Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July
1796) (also known as Rabbie Burns,
Scotland's favourite son, the Ploughman
Poet, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland
as simply The Bard) was a Scottish poet
and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the
national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated
worldwide. He is the best known of the
poets who have written in the Scots
language, although much of his writing is
also in English and a "light" Scots dialect,
accessible to an audience beyond Scotland.
Burns was born in Alloway, South
Ayrshire, the eldest of the seven
children of William Burness
He was born in a house built by his father
(now the Burns Cottage Museum), where
he lived until Easter 1766, when he was
seven years old.
Burns grew up in poverty and hardship, however,
his casual love affairs did not endear him to the
elders of the local kirk and created for him a
reputation for dissoluteness amongst his
neighbours.
HIS WORKS
As well as making original compositions, Burns
also collected folk songs from across Scotland,
often revising or adapting them. His poem (and
song) Auld Lang Syne is often sung at
Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and Scots
Wha Hae served for a long time as an unofficial
national anthem of the country. Other poems
and songs of Burns that remain well-known
across the world today, include A Red, Red
Rose, A Man's A Man for A' That, Ae Fond Kiss
and Tam o' Shanter.
TAM O’SHANTER
Tam o' Shanter, written in 1790, is one of the
best examples of the narrative poem in modern
European literature.
It tells the story of a man who stayed too long at
a public house and witnessed a disturbing vision
on his way home.
The sight he sees is Alloway Kirk, ablaze with
light, where a weird hallucinatory dance
involving witches and warlocks, open coffins and
even the Devil himself is in full swing. The scene
is told with grimly enthusiastic gothic attention to
detail. Tam manages to watch silently until, the
dancing witches having cast off most of their
clothes, he is beguiled by one particularly
comely female witch, Nannie,
Auld Kirk
whose shirt (cutty-sark)
is too small for her.
He cannot help shouting
out in passion:
Weel done, Cutty-sark!
And in an instant
all was dark:
There is a chase and Tam’s evident pride in the
ability of his horse is justified as she is able to help
him to "win the key-stone o' the brig". (Witches and
warlocks cannot cross running water.)
They only just make it though,
as Nannie, first among the
"hellish legion" chasing, grabs
the horse's tail, which comes off.
The poem concludes:
Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed:
Whene'er to Drink you are inclin'd,
Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,
Think ye may buy the joys o'er dear;
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare
Brig o’ Doon
CUTTY SARK
The Cutty Sark is a
clipper ship. Built in
1869, she served as a
merchant vessel (the
last clipper to be built
for that purpose), and
then as a training ship
until being put on public
display in 1954. She is
preserved in dry dock in
Greenwich, London.
The ship is named after the cutty
sark (Scots: a short chemise or
undergarment). This was the
nickname of the fictional character
Nannie Dee (which is also the name
of the ship's figurehead) in Robert
Burns' 1791 comic poem Tam o'
Shanter. She was wearing a linen
cutty sark that she had been given
as a child, therefore it was far too
small for her. The erotic sight of her
dancing in such a short
undergarment caused Tam to cry
out "Weel done, Cutty-sark", which
subsequently became a well known
idiom.
BRIG O’ DOON
Brigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan
Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Songs from
the musical, such as "Almost Like Being in Love" have
become standards.
It tells the story of a mysterious
Scottish village that appears for only
one day every hundred years, though
to the villagers, the passing of each
century seems no longer than one
night. The enchantment is viewed by
them as a blessing rather than a curse,
for it saved the village from destruction.
According to their covenant with God,
no one from Brigadoon may ever leave,
or the enchantment will be broken and
the site and all its inhabitants will
disappear into the mist forever. Two
American tourists, lost in the Scottish
Highlands, stumble upon the village
just as a wedding is about to be
celebrated, and their arrival has
serious implications for the village's
inhabitants.