Robert Burns (1759–1796) is the national poet of Scotland. A farmer's son who wrote in Scots and English, he is the author of Tam o' Shanter, To a Mouse, A Red, Red Rose and Auld Lang Syne, sung all over the world on New Year's Eve. Every year on 25 January, his birthday is celebrated with Burns Night suppers.
Works
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Auld Lang Syne, A Red, Red Rose
The ploughman poet
Robert Burns was born in 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire, in a clay cottage built by his father, a poor tenant farmer. He worked on the farm from childhood, which damaged his health, but his father made sure he was well educated, and he read widely in English and Scottish literature.
He wrote his first song at fifteen for a girl working with him at harvest. After his father's death in 1784 he farmed at Mossgiel with his brother, without success, and had several love affairs that brought him children and the reproaches of the church.
The Kilmarnock edition
Planning to emigrate to Jamaica, Burns published in 1786 Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, printed in Kilmarnock. The book was an immediate success, and he went instead to Edinburgh, where he was celebrated in the salons as a heaven-taught ploughman.
In 1788 he married Jean Armour, with whom he had already had children, and took a farm at Ellisland, near Dumfries. When the farm failed he became an excise officer, collecting taxes, while writing some of his finest poems, including Tam o' Shanter.
The songs
In his last years Burns devoted himself to collecting, restoring and writing Scottish songs, contributing hundreds of them, without payment, to James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum and George Thomson's Select Scottish Airs. Auld Lang Syne and A Red, Red Rose come from this work.
A supporter of the French Revolution in his youth, he wrote poems on liberty and equality. Weakened by heart disease, he died in Dumfries in 1796, at thirty-seven, on the day his son Maxwell was born. Ten thousand people attended his funeral.
Anecdotes
The first Burns Supper
In July 1801, nine friends of Burns met in the cottage where he was born in Alloway to commemorate his death. The tradition of the Burns Supper, with haggis, whisky and recitations of his poems, later moved to his birthday, 25 January.
Auld Lang Syne
Burns sent Auld Lang Syne to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, saying he had taken it down from an old man's singing. He in fact reworked older verses and added his own. The song is now sung at midnight on New Year's Eve in many countries.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Burns the national poet of Scotland?
Because he gave Scottish language and culture a voice in poetry and song, and his works, from Auld Lang Syne to Tam o' Shanter, are known and loved throughout Scotland and beyond.
What is Burns Night?
A celebration held on or around 25 January, Burns's birthday, with a supper of haggis, recitations of his poems and toasts.
What language did Burns write in?
In Scots, the language of the Lowlands of Scotland, as well as in English, often mixing the two.