ROBERT BURNS

ROBERT BURNS
   Robert Burns, the greatest Scottish poet, was born in 1759.He worked on his father''s farm from childhood.
   While walking behind the plough, he composed his first lines.When he was still a child , he liked to listen to folk songs , tales and legends and he was fond of reading;most of the best Scottish and English writers were known to him.
   His first volume of poems published in 1786 brought him some money and introduced him into the literary and fashionable society of Edinburgh.He returned to farming , but as he failed again , he gave it up and removed to Dunfries,in 1791, where he got a humble job at a custom-house.
   But Burns had the gift of song , so he continued to write his poems.In 1795 , his health broke down and he died the following year.
    Burns is considered to be the greatest poetic genius of Scottish literature.The thoughts and the feelings , the joys and the sorrows of the Scottish peasants are reflected in his poetry.He rejected the hypocrisy of bourgeois morals;his lyrical poems are remarkable for their sincerity and simplicity.
    Burns''s poetrycontains strong notes of social revolt.He was influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution  of 1789.Many of his poems express his strong belief in the triumph of justice and liberty, in a bright future for mankind, his belief that social rank does not determine the real value of man.His poems have sprung from his own experiences  and from the realities in which the Scottish bard was born and bred.
       " Lay the proud usurpers!
         Tyrants fall in every foe!
          Liberty''s in every blow.
          Let us do, or die."
     ("Bruce''s Address Before Bannockurn")