The Complete Works of Robert Burns by Robert…

The Complete Works of Robert Burns (original 1886; edition 2008)

by Robert Burns, Allan Cunningham (Editor)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
170	4	160,082	(3.92)	2

LisaMaria_C's review

I feel abashed to admit I don't much like the poetry of Robert Burns. I'm in a decided minority on GoodReads. Only one member gave this one star and eight gave it two stars--versus 71 who gave it five stars. Robert Burns is a major poet; I tried this book of his poetry because it was on Good Reading's "100 Significant Books." I've found reading through that list quite an education that has illuminated Western culture every time I've read one of those books listed. Even those I despised, such as Joyce's Ulysses, I've found well worth reading because you then recognize how it has influenced the literary landscape and culture. Burns is no exception. He is Scotland's favorite son, and I imagine his use of Scots dialect and the vernacular was revolutionary. He is also considered a forerunner of the Romantic Movement and I can see that, especially in his extolling of nature--he has some of the most famous poems about animals in the English Language. Particularly "To a Mouse," a line of which was used as the title Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.

I guess I can blame my reaction on the Scots dialect. I have to admit that to see words like "beastie" and "mousie" seemed very nursery rhyme to me, and often the use of the dialect was so thick as to be impenetrable. Take for instance this opening stanza of "Address to a Haggis:"

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm.

So no, not for me--and yes, there are poets I've loved: Sappho, Omar Khayyam, Shakespeare, Donne, Keats, Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Frost among others. For what it's worth, I may try Burns again someday. There are two things I think I could do to make him more accessible--and that might be true for other readers as well too embarrassed to admit this didn't enthrall them. For one, the edition I read was downloaded for free from Project Gutenberg--a very old edition beyond copyright. A more annotated edition, that gave explanations for the various unfamiliar words might have made a great difference. So even if the content might deserve a better rating, well, I think this edition is not a good introduction. And poetry especially benefits from being read aloud. This might be a case where a talking or audio book might have been a superior experience to the written word. (

)

LisaMaria_C | Jan 2, 2014 |

All member reviews

English (3) Swedish (1) All languages (4)

date ▼ | votes

Showing 3 of 3

)

LisaMaria_C | Jan 2, 2014 |

Burns was born in a clay cottage on January 25th, 1759, in the neighborhood of Alloway Kirk and the Bridge of Doon.

Alexander Smith provides a fairly comprehensive biographical memoir, and a separate chronology, glossary, and index. The poems reflect a "vague Jacobitism".

{The largely non-Catholic Scots had their own form of Jacobitism. After James II was deposed in 1688 and replaced by his daughter Mary II, ruling jointly with her husband and first cousin (James's nephew) William III, the Stuarts lived in exile, occasionally attempting to regain the throne. The strongholds of Jacobitism were the Scottish Highlands, Ireland and Northern England. Some support also existed in Wales. The Jacobites believed that parliamentary interference with monarchical succession was illegal. Catholics also hoped the Stuarts would end recusancy. In Scotland, the Jacobite cause became entangled in the last throes of the warrior clan system. The emblem of the Jacobites is the White Cockade. White Rose Day is celebrated on 10 June, the anniversary of the birth of the Old Pretender in 1688. It is now a symbol of the disaffected, and the remaining Stuart heir on the continent has not made claims for centuries.}

The poems, songs, and letters of Robert Burns. The volume is bound in half-Russian leather, with marbled edges and gilt on the spine. The print is small.

keylawk | Mar 15, 2013 |

Being in chronological order, it brings a new perspective to the works. (

)