Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759 in Ayrshire and died on July 21, 1796 in Dumfries, Scotland. He lived 37 years. He is generally known as the national poet of Scotland with a worldwide reputation. Other names by which he is known include Rabbie Burns, the Ploughman Poet, and the Bard of Ayrshire.
In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a vote run by a Scottish television station.
He wrote mostly in the Scots language that was common in Lowland Scotland. His work included original poems and songs. He also revised and adapted many Scottish folk songs. Some of his most famous works are included in this web site. They are “Auld Lang Syne”, which is sung on New Year’s eve the world over and “Scots Wha Hae”, which was an unofficial national anthem in Scotland for years. In “A Man’s a Man For All That” Burns expresses the universal sentiments of honesty, character, dignity, self-respect, and the ability to think for oneself.
Many people feel that Burns captured the essence of Scotland in his collective work and was the literary voice which spoke of the Scottish life experience. To illustrate this idea we must first understand the society and culture that Burns lived in during his lifetime. Then we can see his reaction to what he sees in his work.
During Burns lifetime the American Revolution started in 1776 when Burns was 17 and the French revolution of 1789 started when Burns was 30.
In 1790 Sir John Sinclair in Caithness submitted a list of 160 questions to 938 parishes. Later six more questions were added and it took over nine years to receive the results from the respondent ministers. This questionnaire came to be known as the Old Statistical Account and it painted a picture of life in Scotland at this time. It was in effect a census. It covered the population, how many, how long they lived, what they did, how much they made, what they ate, what they wore, and what they thought. Though Burns died in 1796 and the Statistical Account was still being compiled, it still has relevance to the type of society Burns lived in during his life. New ideas took a long time to be assimilated in those days.
In the middle of the eighteenth century Scotland, life for most Scots was one of meager existence. It took all of their energy to survive. It was an agrarian society with a few owning the land. Tenant farmers, like Burns and his father, rented the land for a sum of money and tried to earn a living from it. The farming methods and tools were primitive. Towards the end of the eighteenth century new farming techniques and implements were put into use that increased productivity. These advancements did enable the people to start to dress a little nicer and eat a little better, but they were not immediately and universally put into use.
Life for the tenant farmer was hard. They worked all day, six days a week and on Sunday they spent the day in church. Their diet was mostly grain, oatmeal and barley. Meat was an occasional and expensive treat. They lived in damp, thatched houses (sometimes huts) that often also served as the barn for the animals.
The following is a quote from volume 6 page 301 of the Statistical Account from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, “In general, a stranger still views with concern the poor and mean-looking huts, in which the farmers are condemned to dwell, throughout all of this country. Their habitation, and that of their cattle, are generally under one roof, and separated by a partition. Scarcely any of them have an upper story, so that the whole family are obliged to sleep upon the ground, on a damp soil, where the floor is not so much as paved with stones or flags, and where there is not even a fireplace to draw off the moist and stagnant air”.
In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a vote run by a Scottish television station.
He wrote mostly in the Scots language that was common in Lowland Scotland. His work included original poems and songs. He also revised and adapted many Scottish folk songs. Some of his most famous works are included in this web site. They are “Auld Lang Syne”, which is sung on New Year’s eve the world over and “Scots Wha Hae”, which was an unofficial national anthem in Scotland for years. In “A Man’s a Man For All That” Burns expresses the universal sentiments of honesty, character, dignity, self-respect, and the ability to think for oneself.
Many people feel that Burns captured the essence of Scotland in his collective work and was the literary voice which spoke of the Scottish life experience. To illustrate this idea we must first understand the society and culture that Burns lived in during his lifetime. Then we can see his reaction to what he sees in his work.
During Burns lifetime the American Revolution started in 1776 when Burns was 17 and the French revolution of 1789 started when Burns was 30.
In 1790 Sir John Sinclair in Caithness submitted a list of 160 questions to 938 parishes. Later six more questions were added and it took over nine years to receive the results from the respondent ministers. This questionnaire came to be known as the Old Statistical Account and it painted a picture of life in Scotland at this time. It was in effect a census. It covered the population, how many, how long they lived, what they did, how much they made, what they ate, what they wore, and what they thought. Though Burns died in 1796 and the Statistical Account was still being compiled, it still has relevance to the type of society Burns lived in during his life. New ideas took a long time to be assimilated in those days.
In the middle of the eighteenth century Scotland, life for most Scots was one of meager existence. It took all of their energy to survive. It was an agrarian society with a few owning the land. Tenant farmers, like Burns and his father, rented the land for a sum of money and tried to earn a living from it. The farming methods and tools were primitive. Towards the end of the eighteenth century new farming techniques and implements were put into use that increased productivity. These advancements did enable the people to start to dress a little nicer and eat a little better, but they were not immediately and universally put into use.
Life for the tenant farmer was hard. They worked all day, six days a week and on Sunday they spent the day in church. Their diet was mostly grain, oatmeal and barley. Meat was an occasional and expensive treat. They lived in damp, thatched houses (sometimes huts) that often also served as the barn for the animals.
The following is a quote from volume 6 page 301 of the Statistical Account from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, “In general, a stranger still views with concern the poor and mean-looking huts, in which the farmers are condemned to dwell, throughout all of this country. Their habitation, and that of their cattle, are generally under one roof, and separated by a partition. Scarcely any of them have an upper story, so that the whole family are obliged to sleep upon the ground, on a damp soil, where the floor is not so much as paved with stones or flags, and where there is not even a fireplace to draw off the moist and stagnant air”.
Copyright© 2012-2016 Forathat, LLC
