Robert Burns

Robert Burns' poetry is a keystone of Scottish culture. Widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, he's written poetry about trivial things such as the seasons or animals, and he's written about his Scottish culture in the form of poetry reflecting anything from the Scottish highlands to, possibly most famously, haggis. Burns is a symbol of Scottish literature not just for what he writes, but how he writes it. He consistently uses vernacular in his writing to create what might be almost unintelligible poetry to our American midwestern eye. This habit of writing in such a way has shunned his poetry to the outskirts of high praise and into an area where his poetry has been deemed superficial and unsubstantial. Here is part of Burns' famous poem, To a Haggis:

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang’s my arm.

Burns' poetry is especially interesting because while it is incredibly hard to decipher while reading it, Burns' poetry is meant to be orally shared, and thus, becomes somewhat clearer when read out loud in the vernacular it was written in. Burns' poetry is a touchstone of Scottish culture and Scottish speech, and is an important reminder that not all poetry has to be in a specific pocket of language or vernacular to be deemed poetry at all.

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