Robert Burns - January's Blast

For those who see me as a rather feckless film producer, it might come as a surprise to some, that at University I studied the social and aesthetic response to industrialization. I wrote my dissertation about the Romantic Poets and the Crafts Movement. Here below is the 'proof of the pudding', written for last month of Burns Suppers, and also for my students at the Robert Burns class I teach.

The Man, the Myth, the Poetry

Robert Burns’ pastoral poems are exemplified by To a Mouse, To a Mountain Daisy, The Cotters Saturday Night and Now Westlin Winds. These poems speak to the rural forms in the landscape, rather than the contemporary man made forms that were to later be created by the industrial revolution.  Burns was glorifying the attributes of nature above all, as creations better than those created by man. His fellow poet Wordsworth further exemplifies these sentiments in the first line of his famous poem which starts ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats.....'

Robert Burns was along with Wordsworth considered to be one of the first Romantic poets. Due to Wordsworth living to 70 years old, he was a contemporary of Robert Burns, and since Wordsworth was defined as a Romantic poet, he also allowed Robert Burns to enter this category even although technically he was too early for the actual expression of Romanticism in the 18^th century. Indeed it is considered by some that Wordsworth may have meet Robert Burns in his early years and this is not so far-fetched in that they operated within some hundred miles on each other. Wordsworth based in Cumbria while Burns was on the Scottish borders in Dumfries.  It is recorded by Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy in her diary, that he visited Robert Burns’s grave in Dumfries in 1803. Such was the pathos relating to this visit that Wordsworth wrote a poem about it for the children of Robert Burns. This poem was highly significant in gaining Burns entry into the English tradition of Romantic poets via the respect that Wordsworth afforded him.  Dorothy’s visit to Burns grave is described below.

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usebooks/wordsworth-scotland/index.html

Here are the definitions of Romanticism as defined by the Wiki-Pedia.

‘Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-18th century as a reaction against the prevailing ideals of the day (Romantics favored more natural, emotional and personal artistic themes), also influenced poetry. Inevitably, the characterization of a broad range of contemporaneous poets and poetry under the single unifying name can be viewed more as an exercise in historical compartmentalization than an attempt to capture the essence of the actual ‘movement’.
Poets such as William Wordsworth were actively engaged in trying to create a new kind of poetry that emphasized intuition over reason and the pastoral over the urban, often eschewing consciously poetic language in an effort to use more colloquial language. Wordsworth himself in the Preface to his and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads defined good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” though in the same sentence he goes on to clarify this statement by asserting that nonetheless any poem of value must still be composed by a man “possessed of more than usual organic sensibility [who has] also thought long and deeply;” he also emphasizes the importance of the use of meter in poetry (which he views as one of the key features that differentiates poetry from prose).’

Here is Wordsworth poem inspired by the memory of Robert Burns

Address to the Sons of Burns, after visiting their Father's Grave (August 14th, 1803)" Poems in Two Volumes (1807) 2:203-04.

Ye now are panting up life's hill!

'Tis twilight time of good and ill,
And more than common strength and skill
Must ye display
If ye would give the better will
Its lawful sway.

Strong bodied if ye be to bear
Intemperance with less harm, beware!
But if your Father's wit ye share,
Then, then indeed,
Ye Sons of Burns! for watchful care
There will be need.

For honest men delight will take
To shew you favor for his sake,
Will flatter you; and Fool and Rake
Your steps pursue:
And of your Father's name will make
A snare for you.

Let no man hope your souls enslave;
Be independent, generous, brave!
Your Father such example gave,
And such revere!
But be admonish'd by his Grave,
And think, and fear

What proof do we need that Robert Burns was part of the English Romantic Movement than such a eulogy from its finest advocate, William Wordsworth?

The poems To a Mouse and To a Mountain Daisy are the epitome of it and worth study to see how Robert Burns became regarded as a forerunner of the Romantic Movement in his celebration of Nature.

For those wishing to hear the Romantic style, which speaks of the forms of Nature  in words and ballad, one can do no better than this rendering of Now Westlin Wind sung by Dick Goughan at this link here.

To a Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,

O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,

Has broken nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!

It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell -

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain;

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me

The present only toucheth thee:

But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I canna see,

I guess an' fear

To A Mountain Daisy

Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow'r,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,

Thou bonie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,

The bonie lark, companion meet,

Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,

Wi' spreckl'd breast!

When upward-springing, blythe, to greet

The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north

Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth

Thy tender form.

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,

High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;

But thou, beneath the random bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,

Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,

Thou lifts thy unassuming head

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,

Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!

By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust;

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid

Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!

Unskilful Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,

Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,

By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis'ry's brink;

Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,

He, ruin'd, sink!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,

That fate is thine - no distant date;

Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate,

Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,

Shall be thy doom!

2/12/13 Extracts from Life Long Learning course – Robert Burns, The Man and the Myth by Film Maker Mairi Sutherland