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Features of Burns’ poetry
1.As a national poet of Scotland, Burns is chiefly remembered
for his songs in a strong Scottish dialect: simple, direct. Cite the first
two stanzas of A Red, Red Rose as an instance:
“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.”
The Scottish dialect “Luve, melodie” instead of
love and melody; also there are many oral forms in it: that’s, play’d, a’.
It is clear that the words Burns used were all the common Scottish—the rural
people said.
2.As a peasant origin and master of Scottish ballads, Burns’
songs certainly contain the characteristics of Scottish: simplicity, humour,
directness, optimism and passion. These can be seen clearly from the above
instance. The love is dense and passionate; with the simple diction and
vivid images, the way of illustrating love is straightforward.
3.His poems are appreciated as songs and adopted into many
famous songs, because in his poems, there are many musical elements:
simplest meters but strongest beats, light but quick movement. Also take
A Red, Red Rose as the example, because of the strong impression of
music, it had been adopted into the theme song of the film Waterloo
Bridge thus became a world famous song.
4.The political and satirical poems he wrote strongly
reflect his love for freedom, his hatred of tyranny, his sarcastic thrust at
the artificial and egoistic ruling class and clergy. In the Slave’s
Lament, Burns expressed his deep sympathy towards the Negro slaves:
“All on that charming coast is no
bitter snow and frost,
Like the lands of Virginia,-- ginia, O!
There streams for ever flow, and flowers for ever blow,
And alas! I am weary, weary O.
The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear,
In the lands if Virginia,-- ginia, O!
And I think on friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter, tear,
And alas! I am weary, weary, weary O!”
Negro slave’s bearing of hard burden, gains
Burns’ great sympathy and meanwhile makes Burns deep hatred of the cruelty
and tyranny. And in his The Toadeater, Burns bitterly satires the
artificial ruling class:
“What of Earls with whom you have supped,
And of Dukes that you dined with yestreen!
A louse, sir, is still but a louse,
Though it crawls on the curls of a Queen.”
The earls and dukes are minor to him; they are the subjects of his sneering
at.
Because his theme and artistic skills are mostly
derived from the Scottish earth, Burns has become a national symbol for
Scottish all over the world. And in fact he is the best poet that Scotland
has ever had.
Although Burns lived in a remote rural country in Scotland,
he is the real forefather of English Romanticism. His poetry opened a new
canon for English literature after more than a century of cold water—the
trend of neo-Classicism. The fresh inspired songs of Burns flew into the
heart as the music of returning birds in the springtime. Love, humour,
melancholy, the response to nature, the description of remote things and
commonplace—all the poetic qualities that touch the human heart are
contained in his simple, straightforward poems, which marked the sunrise of
the day of Romanticism.
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