By: Article Publisher
Submitted: 2009-11-26 06:42:09 | Word Count: 578
Robert Burns Day is celebrated every January wherever Scots gather to remember the Bard. Robert Burns was a man of the people. His story is that of the poor farmers of Scotland. He was also a genius.
Born in 1759 in Alloway Rabbie, as he is sometimes affectionately called, enjoyed an education beyond that of most of his peers. He first attended school at Alloway Mill and later his father entrusted his family's education to one John Murdoch. His father was a great believer in education and asked John to concentrate on English and French When John Murdoch moved on Burns' father William undertook his further schooling. He was a good living man and his home was full of good educational books and Robert was happy to learn all that his father could teach. Later he spent a summer at Kirkoswald school under Hugh Rodger, a master mind on mathematics.
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Dr. William Dalrymple who baptised him features in The Kirk's alarm. All his writings were influenced by the people and places he knew and loved. His father a very good man leased Mont Oliphant a farm of some 70 acres and there Robert Burns had to work threshing the corn and was in fact the labourer on the farm as his father could not afford one. His brother Gilbert maintained that this hard work was the cause of the poet's depression in later life. Nonetheless his first songs were composed from 1773 at Mount Oliphant including "Handsome Nell." However "The Ruined Farmer" and "The Twa Dogs" are both reminders of how the hard work affected him and how trying to farm the bad land eventually killed his father in yet another farm at Loughlea .There Robert lived for seven years.
His social life had expanded by then and he was prolific in his outpouring of poems and ballads. He moved to Irvine for a year to become a flax dresser. However the building went on fire and that was the end of his apprenticeship. Although he and his brother Gilbert leased a farm in Mossgiel Robert bought bad seed and the crop failed. While he was attempting to farm he was writing more and more and became well known locally for his work. His first volume of the Kilmarnock Edition of 1786 contained forty five poems.
Burns was so disappointed at his lack of ability to make a living that he decided to emigrate to Jamaica and indeed has his bags packed. Luckily he was persuaded to go to Edinburgh instead and it was here that his friendships with the gentry flourished. From there he made many journey and gathered the material he needed for his ballads and poems based on the beauty of the countryside and the people he met.
Burns was a patriotic, a founder of the bachelors' club and an excise man for years. He was not, however, a farmer and his last farm at Ellisland did not prosper either and he and his wife moved to Dumfries where he later died. He is remembered all over the world, particularly on New Year's Eve when probably his most famous work of all is sung "Should auld acquaintances are forget".
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