17 pages • 34 minutes read
Robert BurnsA Red, Red Rose
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1794A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“To A Mouse” by Robert Burns (1786)
Also written by Burns, “To A Mouse” appeared in his 1786 collection Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The poem’s speaker is a farmer who accidentally destroys a mouse’s nest while working their land. The farmer laments the destruction they have caused and tries to assure the mouse that they won’t hurt the little creature. The rest of the poem is a contemplation on the relationship between man and nature, and whether there is really any difference between the two creatures, between the farmer and the little mouse.
“Tam O’Shanter” by Robert Burns (1791)
Rather than dealing with love, nature, or social issues, Burns tells a fantastical tale in “Tam O’Shanter.” The narrative follows a drunken Tam as he leaves the bar one evening. Tam hops on his gray mare named Meg and makes his way home. However, while traveling home, he comes across a group of witches and warlocks engaged in some sort of satanic, ritualized dance. Danger, chaos, and entertainment ensue!
“To A Louse” by Robert Burns (1786)
The speaker addresses the audience after seeing a louse, a small parasitic insect, “On a Lady’s Bonnet, At Church,” as stated in the poem’s subtitle. Throughout the poem, the speaker directly addresses the insect, admonishing it for preying on such a dignified lady and commanding it to go and annoy a poorer person. While humorous, the poem ends with more of a social commentary, with the wish that we could reflect more on how we appear to others both through our appearance and our actions.
Further Literary Resources
Robert Burns and Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland by Nigel Leask (2010).
Leask reassesses Burns’s poetry as an innovative commentary on Scottish society and agriculture. The book focuses on Burns’s usage of the pastoral form, especially given his background as a farmer himself. Using a “[d]etailed study of the literary, social, and historical contexts” of Burns’s writing, Leask shows how Burns’s poetry “explodes the myth of the ‘Heaven-taught ploughman,’ revealing his poetic artfulness and critical acumen as a social observer, as well as his significance as a Romantic precursor.”
Exporting ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’: Robert Burns, Scottish Romantic Nationalism and Colonial Settler Identity by Sarah Sharp (2019).
Sharp Burns’s influence on later writers, especially in regard to the nationalistic identity of Scottish emigrants settling in foreign, colonized territory. Sharp argues that “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” with its conceptualization of “the myth of the self-sufficient Scottish peasant.” This figure, as described by Burns, was also then featured in the writings of John Barr and Thomas Pringle. Scots living in foreign territories used this idea of “the cotter” to establish their own sense of identity.
Burns and the Bank Manager: Robert Burns in the Shadow of the Debtors’ Prison by Clark McGinn (2015).
McGinn looks more at the personal life of Burns in this article, rather than directly assessing Burns’s poetry. McGinn tackles the question as to whether Burns did indeed die in debt and on the verge of being sent to debtors’ prison, as some of his final letters suggest. Using “the credit analytics of banking on a volume of legal papers found in the National Records of Scotland concerning Burns’s estate,” McGinn aims to show what financial state Burns was indeed in by the end of his life.
Listen to Poem
A Scottish folk singer, Robyn Stapleton, performs “A Red, Red Rose” with musical accompaniment. Stapleton is known for her performances of traditional folk songs from the various countries of Great Britain.
Related Titles
By Robert Burns
