Robert Burns and his poetry. The particularities of his poetic style, the main ideas and themes.
R. Burns, the great poet of the Scottish people, was born on the 25th of January 1759 in a small clay-built cottage at Alloway Ayrshire. He was the oldest of the 7 sons of William Burns, a poor gardener.
Robert had great thirst for knowledge. From his teacher he acquired some French and Latin and also a fondness of Shakespeare. From his younger years Burns had an intimate knowledge of Scottish folk-songs.
The young poet felt deeply the injustice of the world where the landlords owned the best land and the woods. Burns' protest against inequality found its vent in his poems which were circulated in manuscripts. They easily won the hearts of common people appealing to their human dignity and giving them belief in their own strength.
Burns decided to seek his fortune abroad. To raise the passage money he issued in July 1786 a printed prospectus of his poems. The enterprise met with success and a collection of 'Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect' made its appearance. The book contained lyrical, humorous and satirical poems written by Robert Burns in the earlier years. Burns' poems were a great success with the public and in April 1787 the book saw a second edition.
Burns is the most optimistic poet among the poets of the end of the 18th century.
His poetry is the bone and the flesh of the Scottish common people. The great poet drew his inspiration from the treasury of the Scotch folklore and his poems in their turn became the people's property. Burns' works are national in their context and form. They express the thoughts and hopes, aspirations of the Scottish peasantry.
Burns always stood for liberty and fought against social inequality. He sympathized with the poor and hated the rich. Burns esteemed people not because of their richness but because of their labor, mind and dignity.
In his Revolutionary Lyric written in the nineties Burns regards the future happiness of common men as the result of revolution. This idea was inspired by the French Revolution which greatly influenced Burns in his poetic work.
About the French Revolution he wrote in the poem 'The Tree of Liberty' in 1793.
In this work the poet tells about the Tree of Liberty that symbolized Liberty planted in France and hopes that such a tree will be planted in England too.
Burns widely uses folklore plots, many of his poems are based on folk legends, for instance 'Tam O'Shater'. It describes how Shater after a jolly night, when he was drinking with his friends, gets on his horse and sets out for home. The road lies across a dreary place. In the ruined church he is passing he sees witches who are having a night of merriment and dancing. Being discovered Tam gallops as he may. He is saved when he reaches a bridge because the witches are afraid of flood.
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'John Barleycorn' is a poem full of humor and cheerfulness. In Burns lyrics we can see wonderful pictures of life of the people, deep feeling of nature and great cordiality and joy. He has many splendid verses devoted to love ('A Red, Red Rose', 'A Fond Kiss'). Many of his poems are written in the form of songs. In his poems Burns glorified a natural mean – a healthy, joyous and clever Scotch peasant. Himself poor, he sang honest poor contrasting them to cruel squires, greedy merchants and hypocrites.
Jonn Donne and Metaphysical poetry. The particularities of this literary school.
Definition of Metaphysical Poetry. The poems classified in this group do share common characteristics: they are all highly intellectualized, use rather strange imagery, use frequent paradox and contain extremely complicated thought. However, metaphysical poetry is not regarded as a genre of poetry. In fact, the main poets of this group didn't read each other's work and didn't know that they were even part of a classification.
Literary critic and poet Samuel Johnson first coined the term 'metaphysical poetry' in his book Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1179-1781). In the book, Johnson wrote about a group of 17th-century British poets that included John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughan. He noted how the poets shared many common characteristics, especially ones of wit and elaborate style.
Metaphysics can cover a broad range of topics from religious to consciousness; however, all the questions about metaphysics ponder the nature of reality. And of course, there is no one correct answer to any of these questions. Metaphysics is about exploration and philosophy, not about science and math.
Characteristics
Perhaps the most common characteristic is that metaphysical poetry contained large doses of wit. In fact, although the poets were examining serious questions about the existence of God or whether a human could possibly perceive the world, the poets were sure to ponder those questions with humor.
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Metaphysical poetry also sought to shock the reader and wake him or her up from his or her normal existence in order to question the unquestionable. The poetry often mixed ordinary speech with paradoxes and puns. The results were strange, comparing unlikely things, such as lovers to a compass or the soul to a drop of dew. These weird comparisons were called conceits.
Metaphysical poetry also explored a few common themes. They all had a religious sentiment. In addition, many of the poems explored the theme of carpe diem (seize the day) and investigated the humanity of life.
One great way to analyze metaphysical poetry is to consider how the poems are about both thought and feeling. Think about it. How could you possibly write a poem about the existence of God if you didn't have some emotional reaction to such an enormous, life-altering question?
John Donne (1572-1631)
All conversations about metaphysical poetry must start with John Donne. He is considered the founder of metaphysical poetry and master of the metaphysical conceit. Donne was not only a poet but a lawyer, priest and satirist. His poetry reflects this diversity, and his works are just as religious as they are funny. Donne explored the idea of religion his whole life, and despite being a priest, spent a lot of time examining the idea of true religion. We can trace these questions back to his upbringing. Donne was born and raised a Roman Catholic when it was illegal to be Catholic in England. He lost many relatives to martyrdom - they were either exiled or executed.
The most striking quality of Donne’s poetry is the use of metaphysical conceit which is a figure of speech in which two far fetched objects or images of very different nature are compared. It surprises its readers by its ingenious discovery and delights them by its intellectual quality. Such conceits are available in his poetry. Such a famous conceit occurs in the poem titled “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”.
Another leading feature of Donne’s poetry is his dramatic presentation that arrests the attention of the readers very quickly. Like other famous poets, Donne has the capacity of opening a poem abruptly adding a dramatic quality to the poem. As we find such abruptness in opening the poem “The Canonization”.
Terseness is another characteristic of all the metaphysical poets. It is true in the case of Donne in particular. And the use of such terseness results in obscurity. Such compactness is traceable in “Go and Catch a Falling Star”.
“No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.”
Many literary critics describe Donne's style as inventive, strong, dramatic and sensual. The paradoxes of his life surely affected the paradoxes in his poetry. He was considered a womanizer, even though he was religious. He wrote as many erotic poems as he did secular ones. Even though his metaphysical poems were witty, they were cynical and ironic as well.
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