Robert burns is a lyricist and satirist Contents Introduction

Features of Robert Burns’ lyrics

Getting acquainted with the poetry of Robert burns, we noticed that the composition and style of his works are dominated by elements of folk poetry – he uses repetitions, refrains, beginnings, etc., which are characteristic of folk songs, tales, and ballads. The mixing of different genres, the free combination of strings with different size and rhythm, the mixing of strings of different metric lengths – all this was taken by Burns from folklore, but creatively reworked and acquired, therefore, a new strength, beauty and value. Mixing genres into lyric poetry, epic dramatic elements are extremely enriched it and made more flexible, allowing deeper and more truthful to show him the world of the senses ambient and event flow. The main themes of his poetry are love and friendship, man and nature (man is the son of nature and the worker in it, he feeds and generates from it), clashes of personality and people with public violence and evil. In his works the free spirit of the Scottish people lives. The Patriotic spirit of national pride inspires Burns's poetry, and in the native song folklore he finds an inexhaustible source of poetic images, themes and motives.
Burns' name is associated with a special form of the stanza: AAABAB with shortened fourth and sixth lines. And at the same time all the stanzas of Burns are permeated with the melody of old Scottish poetry and music. Such scheme is known in medieval lyrics, in particular, in Provencal poetry (from the XI century), but since the XVI century its popularity has faded. It remained in Scotland where had been widely used to Burns, but is associated with his name and known as the "Berns’ stanza", although its official name is the standard Gabby, it goes from the first works that brought fame to this verse in Scotland, - "Elegy on the death of Gabby Simpson, Piper of Kilbarchan" (CA. 1640) Robert Sempill of Bistrita; "Gabby" is not a proper name, but a nickname for the natives of the town of Kilbarchan in the West of Scotland. This form was used in Russian poetry, for example, in Pushkin's poems "Echo" and "Collapse".
In Russia, Robert Burns became known at the turn of the XIII – XIX centuries. The attempts of translation of his poems did such Great Russian poets as Pushkin and Lermontov. But the most widely known Burns gained thanks to the excellent translations of S. Marshak. In many poems the main value for the poet is the nature of his native Scotland, village life in general. In his poetry Burns often used comparisons and metaphors.
Getting acquainted with the literature, we learned that metaphors occupy an important place in the poetic speech. Metaphor makes poetry poetry, as it creates a special imaginative world, characteristic of the poetic vision of the world.
Robert Burns created a special metaphorical world. Burns' metaphors overwhelmingly reflect the phenomena directly noticed by him in reality. If he, for example, compares a girl with a flower, then with one of those flowers that grew in the meadows where he mowed hay, or in his small garden. In Burns, we also discover the aesthetic function of the metaphor. It seems to us that he is the only poet of his time who created a special metaphorical world.
His creativity is characterized by extremely frequent using of plants, i.e. floral metaphors. The floral metaphor of Burns is deep , bright and of particular interest to translators.
In the poem "To a Mountain-Daisy" the girl who has suffered her fate is identified with a flower, namely with "mountain Daisy". In the first five verses, Burns describes the flower and its demise. In verse six, "the flower "and its fate are identified with the fate of the girl: "sweet flow ret of the rural shade". Thanks to the metaphor " ... is laid low in the dust” we understand that a person dies not only literally (death), but also figuratively: he can lose honour, dignity, which for a poet is equivalent to death. Thus, the idea of the whole poem is revealed to us.
In Burns's poem "John Barleycorn” the theme of cultivation of the land, the returning of the ear becomes the key in this poem. The idea is realized in the system of motives of the work: agricultural tools-plow and plow; grass, barley ear and grain; water, sun, seasons and others. But other than nominative, Burns ' symbols are full of metaphorical meanings.
"Plough" - agricultural tools is a metaphor of life, of its beginning and origin. "Clod" - a lump of earth, dust-in this context, "put clod upon his head" - a metaphor for the emergence of a new generation of life, when the seed is thrown into the ground and it sprouts. Thus, the motive of the change of generations, the line between life and death, is embodied in such expressions as "dig a grave with a plow," "did not come out of the ground." Further Burns animates the seasons, with the help of metaphors reinforcing the expressivity of the image.
Thus, Burns expresses his love for folk traditions through the images he created of floral metaphors: agricultural tools – plough, plow, cultivating, cultivation, seed, sprout, flower, etc., using metaphorical comparisons of color and light, the metaphorization of the seasons and the annual cycle. So, in his work there is a single, dominant metaphor of life.
The lyrical hero of the poem: "My Heart's in the Highlands" (Application 1), written in 1787 by R. Burns creates an image of a wanderer driven by fate, conveys the feelings of a refugee left without a homeland, but continues to keep it in his heart. Saying goodbye to his native North, he swears in the eternity of his FILIAL love for his father's land. Emotion, the power of feeling sound in sentences expressing the main idea of the poem:
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;
Wherever I wonder, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands forever I love.
The essence of his love lyric hero finds in the whole flow of images. "The Highlands", "the North", "the mountains," "the birth-place of valour, the country of worth" - contextual synonyms, proud, reverent and devoted love. This is a large, single sum of small - close to a pain familiar. Vivid images of native nature are drawn with the help of expressive epithets: "the mountains high covered with snow", "green valleys", "wild-hanging woods", "and loud purring flowers". So great is the heart, blood connection of the lyrical hero with his native land, that nature is perceived by him as alive, spiritualized. This is expressed by personifications ("Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods";" Farewell to the torrents and loud purring waters") and a number of appeals.
Appeals to the Motherland are accompanied by a persistent repetition of the word "farewell", in the third stanza, which is anaphora, which repeatedly emphasizes the rupture of the lyrical hero with his native and dear. The gap reinforces the antithesis: "My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go." The soul, the heart with the sweet and expensive. In the mind of the lyrical hero there to this day:
"My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe -".
Mountains of the Motherland symbolize the height of the ideal towards which the hero, but find, unfortunately, cannot. Two worlds ("...wherever I go" is an imperfect reality) reveals the romantic attitude of the lyrical hero. The phrase "My Heart's in the Highlands" is reinforced by a six-fold repetition. And the whole first stanza is repeated at the end of the poem, closing the composite ring, emphasizing the idea of the devotion of the hero of the poem his native Scotland. The poem consists of 16 lines, which are organized into 4 stanzas-quatrains with paired rhymes. Written 4-stop the amphibrach, it sounds slowly and solemnly. Male rhymes with an accent on the last syllable form a line, emphasizing the hero's break with the Motherland.
For the lyrical hero his Homeland is a favourite, familiar territory. Saying goodbye to his native North, he swears in the eternity of his filial love to his Motherland. Emotion, strength of feeling sound in sentences expressing the main idea of the poem. We can see so big heart and blood relationship between lyrical hero and his Mother Earth, that nature is perceived as alive and inspired.
We can notice different senses of the main hero when he thinks about his Home. The feeling of joy while he is hunting; a sense of pride and a sense of deep devotion to his Homeland; a sense of sorrow; pain and anguish and sense of injustice when he had to leave it .
The mood of the hero is changing: enthusiasm - pride - sadness - melancholy.
The intonation of the poem is melodious, which is characteristic of R. Burns's lyrics in General. Due to this musicality of the poem and the feeling of love and devotion to the native land, it could well become a folk song.