Consummate wordsmith: BYU exhibit honors Robert Burns' 250th birthday
By Carma Wadley
Deseret News
Published: Saturday, March 28, 2009 8:47 p.m. MDT
Two-and-a-half centuries ago, a wee laddie was born near Alloway, South Ayrshire, Scotland. His parents named him Robert.
Growing up in poverty and hardship as the son of a self-educated tenant farmer, with hardly any chance for formal education, the boy had little to suggest that he would one day become one of the most famous and revered literary figures in the world.
But there are few people today who have not heard of Robert Burns. Poems such as "A Red, Red Rose," "To a Louse," "A Man's a Man for a' That," "To a Mouse" and "My Heart's in the Highlands" are not only still widely read, but phrases from them, such has "best laid plans of mice and men" and "to see ourselves as others see us" have become embedded in the language.
And who has not sung "Auld Lang Syne" to welcome in a New Year?
Burns became known as the National Poet of Scotland almost from the time he began writing; clearly, he has become a poet of the ages, says Matthew Wickman, associate professor of English at Brigham Young University and co-curator of an exhibit at the Harold B. Lee Library that honors Burns and his legacy.
"Burns has been popular with diverse audiences over the past two centuries," Wickman says, "from Victorian proponents of family values in the 19th century to socialists in the 20th century. The qualities of his poetry enabled people to see in him an image of themselves."
Burns' birthday, Jan. 25, has long been celebrated in Scotland and abroad, particularly in the United States, with Burns suppers that include lots of piping, Burns' "Address to a Haggis" and much merriment.
But this year, the birthday has kicked off a yearlong celebration in honor of the 250th anniversary.
Scotland has declared 2009 to be the Year of Homecoming, hoping to attract visitors with Scottish roots from around the world. Some 300 events have been planned, including a huge gathering of the clans in Edinburgh in July.
England's Prince Charles has made headlines at home and on the Internet with recitations of two Burns poems as part of a BBC project that includes other distinguished readers, as well.
So far, more than 175 of Burns' works have been recorded, and the Web site, www.bbc.co.uk/robertburns, has received thousands of hits.
A couple of new biographies have been written, including one called "The Bard: Robert Burns, a Biography," by Scotland's Robert Crawford, which, Wickman says, is getting a lot of buzz in the academic community and "which could well be the definitive Burns biography."
National Tartan Day is April 6 and honors all Americans of Scottish descent, roughly 6 million at last count. (For information, visit www.tartanday.org.)
Closer to home, the Utah Scottish Association not only celebrated with a Burns Supper in January, but it will also be holding its annual Tartan Ball on April 11 at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. (Ticket packages begin at $28. For more information, visit www.utahscots.org.)
And you can bet that Burns will be in the spotlight at the annual Scottish Festival and Highland Games, scheduled for June 12 and 13 at Thanksgiving Point.
There has always been a lot of local interest in Burns, Wickman says. "One reason is that we have a lot of Scottish ancestry here and a big interest in genealogy. The Utah Scottish Association has always had a robust membership."
The BYU exhibit honoring Burns will run through 2009, says co-curator Maggie Gallup, and contains items and artifacts from BYU's extensive collection of Burns materials.
The BYU collection ranks right up there with other major archives, she says. "It certainly is the biggest Burns collection in the West."
Much of the material was collected in the early 20th century by a Salt Lake librarian, Mrs. Robert Foster. "That's about all we know about her. The collection was donated to BYU in the 1920s."
Over the years, more items have been added. "It is all print materials," Gallup says, "books, articles, speeches, pamphlets, souvenirs."
They do not have an original copy of the famous Kilmarnock edition, which was the first printed copy of Burns' work, but there is a facsimile.
There are originals of the first Edinburgh edition and the first American edition of his works. There is a 19th-century Masonic edition, with the cover made from wood of the house where Burns was once married. And there's a miniature edition so small it can fit in a locket.
Before working on the exhibit, "I had not realized what a commodity he was in the 19th century," Gallup says. "All the tourism tie-ins go so far back."
Nor, she says, had she realized how much he had influenced American writers such as John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Whittier was called the American Burns. Walt Whitman drew on Burns' images. It was even said that Abraham Lincoln mimicked Burns' cadences in his speeches."
But for all his popularity, Burns has not been without controversy, Wickman says. "He was very much a man of his times. And he led a morally, religiously and politically complex existence." So, Wickman says, Burns should be memorialized as a complex figure.
"There's no doubt that his work leads all kinds of people to identify with it. People identify with his background, his class, his nationality, his viewpoints. Maya Angelou is a huge fan. Burns just lends himself to wide appeal on diverse grounds."
Burns' legacy is profound, Wickman says. "He's been widely translated into 50, 60 languages. He almost immediately went into French and Scandinavian."
But what sometimes get overlooked, he adds, is that he was very, very good.
"In some ways, the commercial oversimplification is a tragedy, because it downplays the fact that he was an expert poetic craftsman. He has been marginalized as the poet of the masses but not as a significant literary figure."
There is more scholarly attention now, as there should be, Wickman says. "His work has much to say on social issues ranging from slavery to the environment, but it's also very well done. It's funny, it's poignant, it's lyrical. It's a pleasure to the ear and the mind. It's beautiful writing."
E-mail: carma@desnews.com
© 2009 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved
By Carma Wadley
Deseret News
Published: Saturday, March 28, 2009 8:47 p.m. MDT
Two-and-a-half centuries ago, a wee laddie was born near Alloway, South Ayrshire, Scotland. His parents named him Robert.
Growing up in poverty and hardship as the son of a self-educated tenant farmer, with hardly any chance for formal education, the boy had little to suggest that he would one day become one of the most famous and revered literary figures in the world.
But there are few people today who have not heard of Robert Burns. Poems such as "A Red, Red Rose," "To a Louse," "A Man's a Man for a' That," "To a Mouse" and "My Heart's in the Highlands" are not only still widely read, but phrases from them, such has "best laid plans of mice and men" and "to see ourselves as others see us" have become embedded in the language.
And who has not sung "Auld Lang Syne" to welcome in a New Year?
Burns became known as the National Poet of Scotland almost from the time he began writing; clearly, he has become a poet of the ages, says Matthew Wickman, associate professor of English at Brigham Young University and co-curator of an exhibit at the Harold B. Lee Library that honors Burns and his legacy.
"Burns has been popular with diverse audiences over the past two centuries," Wickman says, "from Victorian proponents of family values in the 19th century to socialists in the 20th century. The qualities of his poetry enabled people to see in him an image of themselves."
Burns' birthday, Jan. 25, has long been celebrated in Scotland and abroad, particularly in the United States, with Burns suppers that include lots of piping, Burns' "Address to a Haggis" and much merriment.
But this year, the birthday has kicked off a yearlong celebration in honor of the 250th anniversary.
Scotland has declared 2009 to be the Year of Homecoming, hoping to attract visitors with Scottish roots from around the world. Some 300 events have been planned, including a huge gathering of the clans in Edinburgh in July.
England's Prince Charles has made headlines at home and on the Internet with recitations of two Burns poems as part of a BBC project that includes other distinguished readers, as well.
So far, more than 175 of Burns' works have been recorded, and the Web site, www.bbc.co.uk/robertburns, has received thousands of hits.
A couple of new biographies have been written, including one called "The Bard: Robert Burns, a Biography," by Scotland's Robert Crawford, which, Wickman says, is getting a lot of buzz in the academic community and "which could well be the definitive Burns biography."
National Tartan Day is April 6 and honors all Americans of Scottish descent, roughly 6 million at last count. (For information, visit www.tartanday.org.)
Closer to home, the Utah Scottish Association not only celebrated with a Burns Supper in January, but it will also be holding its annual Tartan Ball on April 11 at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. (Ticket packages begin at $28. For more information, visit www.utahscots.org.)
And you can bet that Burns will be in the spotlight at the annual Scottish Festival and Highland Games, scheduled for June 12 and 13 at Thanksgiving Point.
There has always been a lot of local interest in Burns, Wickman says. "One reason is that we have a lot of Scottish ancestry here and a big interest in genealogy. The Utah Scottish Association has always had a robust membership."
The BYU exhibit honoring Burns will run through 2009, says co-curator Maggie Gallup, and contains items and artifacts from BYU's extensive collection of Burns materials.
The BYU collection ranks right up there with other major archives, she says. "It certainly is the biggest Burns collection in the West."
Much of the material was collected in the early 20th century by a Salt Lake librarian, Mrs. Robert Foster. "That's about all we know about her. The collection was donated to BYU in the 1920s."
Over the years, more items have been added. "It is all print materials," Gallup says, "books, articles, speeches, pamphlets, souvenirs."
They do not have an original copy of the famous Kilmarnock edition, which was the first printed copy of Burns' work, but there is a facsimile.
There are originals of the first Edinburgh edition and the first American edition of his works. There is a 19th-century Masonic edition, with the cover made from wood of the house where Burns was once married. And there's a miniature edition so small it can fit in a locket.
Before working on the exhibit, "I had not realized what a commodity he was in the 19th century," Gallup says. "All the tourism tie-ins go so far back."
Nor, she says, had she realized how much he had influenced American writers such as John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
"Whittier was called the American Burns. Walt Whitman drew on Burns' images. It was even said that Abraham Lincoln mimicked Burns' cadences in his speeches."
But for all his popularity, Burns has not been without controversy, Wickman says. "He was very much a man of his times. And he led a morally, religiously and politically complex existence." So, Wickman says, Burns should be memorialized as a complex figure.
"There's no doubt that his work leads all kinds of people to identify with it. People identify with his background, his class, his nationality, his viewpoints. Maya Angelou is a huge fan. Burns just lends himself to wide appeal on diverse grounds."
Burns' legacy is profound, Wickman says. "He's been widely translated into 50, 60 languages. He almost immediately went into French and Scandinavian."
But what sometimes get overlooked, he adds, is that he was very, very good.
"In some ways, the commercial oversimplification is a tragedy, because it downplays the fact that he was an expert poetic craftsman. He has been marginalized as the poet of the masses but not as a significant literary figure."
There is more scholarly attention now, as there should be, Wickman says. "His work has much to say on social issues ranging from slavery to the environment, but it's also very well done. It's funny, it's poignant, it's lyrical. It's a pleasure to the ear and the mind. It's beautiful writing."
E-mail: carma@desnews.com
© 2009 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved
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