The Grapevine Early Spring 2020 Grapevine Feb-Mar 2020 v1 | Page 22

Burns Night 1785 he met Jean Armour and she had twins the following year. He was influenced by Henry Mackenzie’s novel ‘The Man of Feeling’ (published in 1771) and said he loved it next to the Bible. He was also inspired by the work of Wordsworth, Shelley and Coleridge. B urns Night – 25th January commemorates the life of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns who was born in 1759, the eldest of seven children. Despite his parents being poor, Robert received a basic education in English, French and Mathematics. As a young man, he worked as a labourer and ploughman. He fell in love when he was fifteen and wrote his first poem ‘O, Once I lov’d a Bonnie Lass.’ In 1784 his father died and he and his brother Gilbert continued to farm. Robert’s first child was born to his mother’s servant in 1785. In Entanglements with women and financial problems became so acute he thought of emigrating to Jamaica. Then he sent some poems to a publisher in Kilmarnock. The collection entitled ‘Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect’ was published in 1786 and funded by subscription (a bit like crowd funding). Initially 612 copies were printed at a cost of three shillings each. They sold out within a month. He was feted by the literary and aristocratic society of Edinburgh where he appeared as a ‘Heaven taught ploughman.’ He lived a life of dissipation and amorous complexity. His biographer De Lancey Ferguson said “it was not so much that he was conspicuously sinful as that he sinned conspicuously.” He was asked to collect old Scottish songs for ‘The Scots Musical Museum’ and he amended and re-wrote over 200 – among them ‘Auld Lang Syne’, ‘Ye Banks & Braes’ and ‘My love is like a red, red rose.’ In 1788 he married Jean Armour and settled on a poor farm in Dumfries. (He had fourteen children by four different women – nine of them with his wife). In 1791 he became an Excise Officer and gave up farming. In that year, he published his last major poem ‘Tam O’Shanter.’ He died in July 1796 of rheumatic heart disease He was thirty seven. His wife gave birth to his last child while his funeral service was in progress. A traditional Burns Night supper includes haggis, neeps and tatties (swede and potatoes) and whisky. Robert’s famous poem ‘Address to a Haggis’ is often included! Sue Johnson Poet & Novelist Creative Writing Workshops Critique Service & Talks Tel: [phone] • www.writers-toolkit.co.uk 22 To advertise call 01684 833715 or email: [email protected]