Robert Burns biography

 Robert Burns  1759-1796


LIFE


Born at Alloway in Ayrshire, the son of a poor farmer, Burns received

a solid education and literary grounding from his father and the

village schoolmaster.


A farm labourer at fifteen, he tried various occupations until, at the

death of his father, in 1784 he and his brother took on a farm at

Mossgiel. In 1786, to raise money for a trip (never taken) to Jamaica,

he published his first volume of poetry - and was well-received in

Edinburgh. He was famous.


The proceeds of a second edition of his poems enabled him to marry and

set up, again, as a farmer on the banks of the Nith near Dumfries. In

1789 he received an appointment with the excise board - which was just

as well, as his Dumfries farm prospered no better than his previous

ventures.


Burns' notoriety for his dissipated and amorous life, his radicalism and 

his robust use of dialect have given him a significance which often 

obscures his true achievement as a satiric and lyric poet of the highest 

order.


PRINCIPAL WORKS


Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect  1786, 1787, 1793

The Scots Musical Museum (ed James Johnson)  1787-1803

A Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs for the Voice

                                         (ed George Thomson)  1793-1818


THE POEM


THE BANKS O' DOON


Both versions were composed in 1791.


sae = so

fause = false

wist = knew

hae = have

ilka = each, every

frae = from

aff = off

staw = stole

or = before



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