I grew up in the heart of the Fife coalfields. My hometown of Cardenden had barely existed (save as a church and some farms) until the discovery of local coal-seams. Early in the twentieth century families moved eastwards from Lanarkshire to Fife to claim their share of the new jobs. Houses were erected in a hurry – with no time even to think of names for the streets, so that they were called One Street, Two Street, Three Street, and so on. It was a community driven by hard work and common beliefs. The miners paid for local amenities to be constructed and even for an annual children’s outing to the seaside. Little wonder that Robert Burns – the ‘People’s Poet’, the voice of working-class Scotland – was revered.
In primary school, with the help of the local Burns Club, the children were persuaded to learn one of the bard’s poems and one of his lyrics by heart. We were then taken to the church hall across the street and, in front of parents and dignitaries, led one at a time on to the stage to recite the one and sing the other. An elderly gentleman had been placed backstage and would take each of us by the hands, telling us not to be nervous and to fix our eyes on the large clock at the back of the hall, so as not to be distracted by the audience. Afterwards, certificates were awarded, with an additional gold-trimmed diploma for those who passed a written classroom test on Burns’s life and work.
In a box somewhere, I probably still have all three.
The Scots remain proud of Robert Burns. He is known internationally, celebrated around the world at Burns Night ceilidhs and dinners. On New Year’s Eve (called Hogmanay in Scotland) people link arms to sing the words of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ – whether or not they understand them. On a recent trip to Dunedin in New Zealand I was shown a large statue of the poet, dominating the main square. My guide was happy to point out that Burns had been positioned with his back to the church, but facing the pub. Yet much of Burns’s output remains unread or under-appreciated. Some people consider him a populist, others a figure of romance. Many a Scot can probably recite the first few lines of ‘To a Mouse’ or ‘To a Haggis’, or sing the opening verse of ‘A Red, Red Rose’. People know the story of ‘Tam o’ Shanter’, but only the purists have the poem by heart. So just how relevant is Burns and why does he deserve his many memorials?
Robert Burns was a self-starter. He did not come from a privileged background, but was surrounded by the ballads, stories and songs of his native Ayrshire. As an adult, he failed (more than once) at his father’s profession of farming, but seemed to find adversity a suitable muse. He was a profligate lover and his ‘love’ poems are artful constructions, often attempting to persuade the woman that Burns will always remember her, even though he is about to move on to fresher fare. In recent years, some of Burns’s bawdier creations have been republished (see ‘The Fornicator’), showing just how earthy he was. There’s nothing fancy or high-handed about Burns, yet he is also capable of intellectual debate and political commentary. His poem ‘Fareweel to a’ Our Scottish Fame’ is a sustained piece of controlled vitriol. The battlefield heroes of the past (Bruce and Wallace) have been betrayed by a ‘coward few’, bribed to bring Scotland under the yoke of England so that it becomes a mere ‘province’. When I chose to preface my novel Black and Blue with a quote from Burns’s poem, I did so because that book discussed the failed devolution vote of 1979 and the use of oil revenues as funding for the British government’s campaign in the South Atlantic. (The Scottish National Party used often to campaign under the slogan-cum-rallying-cry ‘It’s Scotland’s oil!’)
Burns’s lifetime coincided with a period of political turmoil. He looked at the French Revolution with great interest, and was a proponent of social equality. (Having given up farming for the life of a government exciseman, his positive take on events in France almost led to his dismissal.) Influenced by Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, Burns’s poem ‘Is There for Honest Poverty’ (1795) contains some of his most enduring sentiments on egalitarianism. In it he champions the man of ‘independent mind’ and lampoons the baubles associated with rank and station. Burns envisages a time when people will be judged on merit alone, creating both a national and international brotherhood. It’s clear why this son of Alloway’s message travelled successfully to regions like Soviet Russia, where Burns Night is still celebrated every 25th of January. The problem with Burns Night, however, is that it is often reductive. People swig their whisky and clap their hands as a piper marches into the room, followed by a chef carrying the platter groaning with haggis. The famed poem is recited, the haggis sliced open and then everyone tucks in. Tartan is worn or displayed, and there may be dancing or song. This gives only the most slender glimpse of Burns as a man and as a poet. Read a lyric such as ‘Man Was Made to Mourn’ and you begin to sense something close to melancholy. It talks of oppression and man’s ‘inhumanity’, and pleads once more for equality and freedom. The ‘independent mind’ of ‘Is There for Honest Poverty’ here becomes ‘an independent wish’. (As I write this Introduction, there are few in Scotland who can equate the word ‘independent’ with anything other than a sundering of the political union with England.) The simmering anger in these poems seems a world away from the ‘couthy’ sentiments expressed in ‘Afton Water’ or ‘Farewell to the Highlands’. Burns, a lover of spirits and a spirited lover, was also afflicted by occasional depression and self-doubt.
It is hard to know how to reconcile these different facets of the poet’s character, and I’m not convinced such toil needs to be undertaken. Burns, to steal Walt Whitman’s phrase, ‘contains multitudes’. He can be political, or intimately romantic. He can extol the virtues of nature, but also castigate the vagaries of human nature. Just as he charmed polite society in Edinburgh on his several visits, so he was every bit as comfortable among the regulars at the Globe Inn in Dumfries (to the point of scratching stanzas and aphorisms on its windows). We admire him for the breadth of his knowledge and artistry, for the wry humour and earthly passion exhibited in many of his poems and lyrics. We admire his humanism and belief in commonality. He showed the world that you could be a poet whatever your background and apparent station in life. He remains popular as well as populist and is a great user of the vernacular. Scots is a language ready-made for poetry, bringing with it a multitude of synonyms, images and onomatopoeic words, and ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ remains the greatest poem in the Scots language – at least until Hugh MacDiarmid. It is a celebration of community (the ‘drouthy neebors’ of the opening lines, meaning ‘thirsty friends’), but also of storytelling and linguistic verve. It takes delight in itself, which makes it a delight as a performance. It also pulls off a feat unique in poetry, in being humorous and frightening in near-equal measure.
It can be found, of course, in this selection of the best of Robert Burns’s poems and songs.
Ian Rankin