I have been intrigued for a long time about how a small, fairly educated Scotsman could have such an impact on me some 250 years after his original writings were published. How could a foreign and distant writer speak to me with his words written across so many years?
The first realization I had of Robert Burns was in my senior English class where I read from his works along with those of Marlow, Yeats and Shakespeare---each passionate in writing about people and the emotional environments they inhabit. Burns does this well, and from a very simplistic plane, which mirrors my own perspective of life and those that live around me.
I relate most with Robert Burns’ connection to the rural land he lived and farmed in. I, too, grew up in a very small, farm-riddled community in Kentucky that allowed us access to same terrain that he must have experienced daily. There is an unrestrained sense of freedom in jumping a fence and running through a feral field, or crawling on top of yellow hay bales near a barn to catch a lofty view of the beautiful valley below. With this type of upbringing, you gain a sense of value from the land that houses and feeds you. You become familiar and appreciative of the animals and livestock that surround you, both the domesticated and wild varieties.
As an older man, now, I realize what Burns must have at nearly the same age, that our cultures and countries are in a constant episode of change, and that it is hard to hold onto those values you once learned as a child in a world that continually desires to “grow up”. Burns surely saw the Industrial Revolution coming; he knew that England’s influence on its northern neighbor would have constant and considerable effects on Scotland’s welfare and history. He wrote prolifically, and accurately, about the small things that make us human and connect us all, despite our geographical location or the years of separation. Robert Burns stood for every person’s right to live and love this life and this Earth.
Burns certainly lived at the dawn of so much colossal historical change: oral storytelling giving way to stories in print; Scotland’s autonomy poised to submit to its dominant master; and manual labor succumbing to the more efficient and profitable machinery that would fire the Industrial Revolution. And just as he was learning to balance all of these changes, Robert Burns’ life expired at the age of 37.
To some, it might be a small blip on the radar of humankind’s literary prowess, but I hold up Robert Burns’ works as some of the most authentic lines of prose ever published. And furthermore, I believe in his words as a testimony a virtue that is true within us all that is very much possible, and needed, in our own modern times.
The first realization I had of Robert Burns was in my senior English class where I read from his works along with those of Marlow, Yeats and Shakespeare---each passionate in writing about people and the emotional environments they inhabit. Burns does this well, and from a very simplistic plane, which mirrors my own perspective of life and those that live around me.
I relate most with Robert Burns’ connection to the rural land he lived and farmed in. I, too, grew up in a very small, farm-riddled community in Kentucky that allowed us access to same terrain that he must have experienced daily. There is an unrestrained sense of freedom in jumping a fence and running through a feral field, or crawling on top of yellow hay bales near a barn to catch a lofty view of the beautiful valley below. With this type of upbringing, you gain a sense of value from the land that houses and feeds you. You become familiar and appreciative of the animals and livestock that surround you, both the domesticated and wild varieties.
As an older man, now, I realize what Burns must have at nearly the same age, that our cultures and countries are in a constant episode of change, and that it is hard to hold onto those values you once learned as a child in a world that continually desires to “grow up”. Burns surely saw the Industrial Revolution coming; he knew that England’s influence on its northern neighbor would have constant and considerable effects on Scotland’s welfare and history. He wrote prolifically, and accurately, about the small things that make us human and connect us all, despite our geographical location or the years of separation. Robert Burns stood for every person’s right to live and love this life and this Earth.
Burns certainly lived at the dawn of so much colossal historical change: oral storytelling giving way to stories in print; Scotland’s autonomy poised to submit to its dominant master; and manual labor succumbing to the more efficient and profitable machinery that would fire the Industrial Revolution. And just as he was learning to balance all of these changes, Robert Burns’ life expired at the age of 37.
To some, it might be a small blip on the radar of humankind’s literary prowess, but I hold up Robert Burns’ works as some of the most authentic lines of prose ever published. And furthermore, I believe in his words as a testimony a virtue that is true within us all that is very much possible, and needed, in our own modern times.