(1759-1796 / Ayrshire / Scotland)

Robert Burns
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Burns, sometimes known as the 'ploughman poet', was the eldest son of a poverty-stricken farmer. Though his father had moved to Ayrshire, where Burns was born, in order to attempt to improve his fortunes, he eventually died as a bankrupt - after taking on first one farm and then, unsuccessful, moving to another - in 1784. Robert, who had been to school since the age of six, and was also educated at home by a teacher, had, by the age of fifteen, already become the farm's chief labourer. He had also acquired a reading knowledge of French and Latin and had read Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton and the Bible. After his father's death, he and his brother continued farming together, working now at ... more »

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Quotations

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  • ''Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
    Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
    Welcome to your gory bed,
    Or to victory.''
    Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scottish poet. Scots Wha Hae (l. 1-4). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and Jo...
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  • ''Lay the proud usurpers low!
    Tyrants fall in every foe!
    Liberty's in every blow!
    Let us do, or die!''
    Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scottish poet. Scots Wha Hae (l. 21-24). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and ...
    279 person liked.
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  • ''But pleasures are like poppies spread,
    You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
    Or like the snow falls in the river,
    A moment white—then melts for ever;''
    Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scottish poet. Tam o' Shanter (l. 59-62). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and...
    236 person liked.
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  • ''Ae market night,
    Tam had got planted unco right,
    Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
    Wi' reaming swats that drank divinely;''
    Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scottish poet. Tam o' Shanter (l. 37-40). . . Oxford Anthology of English Literature, The, Vols. I-II. Frank Kermode and...
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Comments about Robert Burns

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  • Ryan Walker (1/26/2012 12:13:00 PM)

    Interesting. His poetry reminds me of when I read Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn. It's a great use of broken and common language. It certainly adds an aspect to his poetry.

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  • Ted Mohr (12/11/2009 11:35:00 AM)

    Your copy of Robert Burns' A Man's a Man for A' That appears to me to have left out one line in the final stanza which when entered would make the 5th and 6th lines read:
    For a' that, an' a' that,
    It’s cuming yet, for a' that,

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