The cottage in Ayrshire where Robert Burns was born
Robert Burns 250th Anniversary
Man of his times
By Alex Davidson
Burns lived during a time of momentous change. It was one of the most dramatic and far-reaching periods of technological change in human history. He was born at the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Some fifty years earlier, in 1707, the Scottish parliament had agreed to join the English parliament mainly because Scotland was promised free trade with England and England's colonies. With this, Glasgow, in particular, developed a very profitable trade in tobacco from Virginia, "the huge prize of the union", and sugar from the West Indies, both of which relied on the slave trade. Edinburgh was the second largest city in Britain after London; and Norwich was the third largest reflecting the predominantly agricultural mode of production at this time prior to the industrial revolution.
In the 1760s and 1770s the social and economic structure of Scotland began a "process of transformation unparalleled among European societies in its speed, scale and intensity ... Scottish industrialisation was explosive; that of England, cumulative, protracted and ... evolutionary in character".
The Immortal Memory of Robert Burns
By Bill Sweeney
"Burns ... Mair nonsense has been uttered in his name Than in ony's barrin' liberty - and Christ".
Thus Hugh MacDiarmid, in the midst of a diatribe against the Burns cult, in his poem of 1926 "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle".
Your Excellency, Ladies, Gentlemen, friends - it is an honour to be asked to propose the "Immortal Memory of Robert Burns" in such distinguished company; an honour - and a problem! Whose memory is it that we propose to make immortal?
Psychologists tell us that our own memories are not only fallible, but are as much reconstructions, re-interpretations (even inventions) of the past as much as anything else. We see the past through the filtering lens of our present consciousness, our present hopes, our present sense of ourselves.
Does this invalidate the whole idea of such a toast as the "Immortal Memory"?
Does it make us lift our glasses more cautiously? Or does it give us a better sense of the complex richness and potential of the human spirit?
When individuals become heroes - even literary heroes - something of them becomes detached, becomes, in a real sense, public property. Their spirit is called as a witness in support of current popular sentiment, validating and reinforcing it, even to the extent of becoming a barrier to critical dissent.
Robert Burns' Internationalism
By Alex Davidson
One of the acid tests of a progressive then as now is support for the struggle in other countries, even if it is against your own government. Robert Burns was one of those and he was not just an internationalist in the abstract.
In Burns' day with the American Revolution and War of Independence, America fought Britain and Burns supported it. And then in 1789 came the French Revolution with Britain soon at war against France. Burns, despite intimidation and pressure, supported France.
American War of Independence 1776-1783
Burns unequivocally supported the Americans against his own government. George Washington, Comm-ander in Chief of the American Forces and first President of the United States of America was toasted by Burns in his 'Ode for George Washington's Birthday'. Burns wrote, in reference to George III,
"See gathering thousands, while I sing
A broken chain exulting bring
And dash it in a tyrant's face".
And in his 'Ballad of the American War', he sarcastically wrote:
"And did nae less in full Congress
Than quite refuse our law, man".
At the same time as showing his support for the American revolutionaries he expressed sympathy with the enslaved Africans taken to the Americas.
Burns: the Master of Political Song
By Jim Tait
"Ploughman Poet" is probably the most popular description of Robert Burns throughout the world.
He certainly pushed a plough and he certainly was a poet as his wonderful work - To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough (1785) - testifies.
As the title states, Burns' inspiration for To A Mouse was when he disturbed a mouse while ploughing on his family's farm at Mossgiel in south east Ayrshire. Yes he was a ploughman, yes he was a poet; but that description tells less than half the story of Burns' genius.
Of the 559 works that make up the 'official' complete works of Burns, some 368, or 65%, are songs.
That number shows that Burns was foremost a lyricist and arguably the greatest Scottish lyricist of all time. And his songs of life, love and liberty! live on in the music of today. His song, Auld Lang Syne is sung by millions all over the world every year as the old year passes and the new one begins.
In Scotland in the latter part of the 18th century he was Bob Dylan and John Lennon all rolled into one: in my opinion his poetry found its finest expression when he put it to music.
There is always an exception to every opinion and Burns' poem, Tam O' Shanter is my own exception to my own opinion. It is music-less and it is magnificent.
