Robert Burns
Robert Burns (1759-96), Scottish poet. He started work as a farmer but was not very successful. Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786) was intended to pay for his emigration to Jamaica but was so successful that he gave up the plan. Instead, he travelled around Scotland, collecting and improving traditional ballads. Weakened by overwork and heavy drinking, he died aged only 37 and is regarded as Scotland’s national poet. Spontaneity, wit, and simplicity are features of his poetry; his best-known poems include ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and ‘To a Mouse’.
“If you can imagine a Scotch commercial traveller in a Scotch commercial hotel leaning on the bar and calling the barmaid Tearie’ then you will know the keynote of Burns’s verse.E. Housman, unpublished essay”
