Selected Poems

Robert Burns

ene 2005 · Penguin UK

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This selection gives equal weight to the two aspects of Robert Burns's reputation, as a lyricist and as a much-loved Scottish poet. Placing works in probable order of composition, it includes lyrics to his most well known songs, such as the nostalgic Auld Lang Syne, the romantic A Red, Red Rose, and the patriotic Scots What Hae. As a poet, Burns wrote with deceptive simplicity and imaginative sympathy, and demonstrated enormous range - from comic dramatic monologues such as Holy Willie's Prayer, which mocks hypocrisy, to narratives including the celebrated Tam O' Shanter, about the ghostly visions of a drunk.

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Robert Burns was born in 1759, the son of a struggling tenant farmer in Ayrshire. Lucky enough to be educated, Burns immersed himself in the literature of Milton and Sterne, discovering the possibilities of contemporary literature in Scots during his twenties. He died in 1796.


Carol McGuirk is a Professor of English at Florida Atlantic University. Her publications include Robert Burns and the Sentimental Era and essays on eighteenth-century poetry.