|
Edited by Frank R. Shaw, Atlanta, GA, USA
email: jurascot@earthlink.net
Our guest columnist, Abb Gunn, is a product of
New Mexico, the grandson and great grandson of homesteaders during the
1880s when the area was still Indian territory. His educational studies,
outside of New Mexico, carried him to New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
and Delaware. Earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Temple University
and a Masters of Music degree at West Chester State University, Abb did
further post graduate studies at the University of Texas-Austin.
Abb Gunn is very active in the Scottish
Community. In 1993 he was appointed genealogist of Clan Gunn Society of
North America, and in 2000 assumed these duties for the worldwide Clan
Gunn Society. He is a member of the St. Andrews Society of Atlanta.
His favorite hobby is an unusual one – growing
palm trees – of which he has over 200 in his yard. In the Atlanta area,
this can be quite a challenge, but Abb has only lost two over the last 14
years. He is considered by some as an authority on raising temperate
palms, including native species of Georgia, Brazil, Afghanistan, Europe,
Mexico and the Canary Islands. Abb’s gardening interests also include a
large collection of hybrid irises, his favorite plant. He is also a fan of
S-gauge railroading – he still has his American Flyer train set from his
childhood!
THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF ROBERT BURNS
By Abb Gunn
Delivered at the St. Andrew’s Society of
Atlanta’s Burns Night Dinner
Druid Hills Golf Club
January 15, 2005
I am indebted to the Burns Club of Edinburgh
and David Sibbald for the four essays I will adapt for tonight.
If we look at Robert Burns in the context of
the social and cultural forces of the Scotland of his day, we are more
able to understand his achievement and place him in perspective.
The Union of Parliaments (1707) came with the
threat of the total submergence of Scottish culture. Burns, among others,
chose a path of rediscovery of their own national traditions. By revival
and development, they find a satisfaction that will compensate for
political impotence. His letters are fine examples of Standard English yet
he chose to use the Scots dialect and old Scottish verse forms when
writing poetry. His development was toward a new harmony of English and
Scots with complete mastery of each, the perfect example being "Tam
O’Shanter". He was never a backwater poet using an obscure language but
fused the two to raise awareness of the Scottish Nation from local
incidents to the National, International, and Universal level.
Burns was known as the poet of the people and
he does encompass every emotion in his songs but there is more to him than
that. We must place ourselves in the 18th Century and be aware of world
conditions and influences on society. In his letter of 1793 enclosing the
poem "Bruce’s Address at Bannockburn", more commonly known as "Scots Wha
Hae", he refers to the recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom,
especially the success of the French in beating back enemies of the
Republic (post revolution).
The poem, although cloaked in an historical
format, was really a rallying call to all Scots, indeed, all humanity, to
withstand tyranny and oppression. There are other examples - "The Rights
of Woman - of inspiration at work. The poem was written for Louise
Fontenelli’s benefit night and is frequently used in the Toast to the
Laddies at Burns suppers, but that is only the surface. The title would
remind us of Thomas Paine’s "The Rights of Man", a political rebuttal of
Edmund Burke’s "Reflections on the Revolution in France".
The American Revolution was considered a
success in general - a violent war followed by a democratic government and
a stable political power. The Americans proceeded mostly by trial and
error, Articles of Confederation replaced by a Constitution and the
country evolved. Thomas Paine and Robert Burns expected the French
Revolution to follow the same pattern. As the drama unfolded, disillusion
set in as the regicide of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette led the British
Government to worry about anti-monarchical sympathies in places like
Scotland. To even read "The Rights of Man" became a treasonous and
dangerous activity. People with government jobs (like Burns) had to be
very careful of public behavior. There are many parallels between Robert
Burns and Thomas Paine, both excisemen, but where Burns knew how to grovel
and back down, Paine served prison time.
Burns had every reason to be afraid. By mid
1793, Scottish courts were giving severe sentences, including deportation,
for simply reading or distributing "The Rights of Man". Burns did not,
however, recant his positions. He went "underground". The passion was
still there but it had to be disguised. Though both editions of his
collected poems published in his lifetime, the Kilmarnock and Edinburgh,
contain captivating poetry, there is an enigma that nowhere can be found
poems with biting condemnation of oppression by church and state that
abound in those poems published after his death.
No one reading through the editions could have
realized that there were forces driving Burns to attempt to improve the
lot of his fellow men and women. The enigma of his fame is further
compounded by his funeral - full military honors, two regiments of the
British Army and militia, thousands paid their respects, the coffin was
processed to St. Michael’s Churchyard (Dumfries) for burial in an unmarked
grave.
We in the 21st century tend to take for
granted the freedoms we enjoy and find it difficult to appreciate how
oppressed the 18th Century Scots were. Though it was technically possible
to express a political opinion in print, it could result in a heavy
penalty. Burns was well aware of this when in 1794 he wrote:
They banished him beyond the sea,
But ere the bud was on the tree,
Adown my cheeks the pearls run,
Embracing my John Highlandman.
John Higlandman’s crime was to wear highland
dress and be loyal to his clan. Burns had to consider the wisdom of
publishing poems that touched on human rights. He communicated his
humanitarian view by word of mouth and private circulation of his poems.
He had to be constantly on guard against the threat to his liberty from
the authorities. Consequently his criticisms were very effectively veiled.
In "A Dream (1786) he dropped his guard when he criticized the crown and
political establishment based upon a mistaken assumption:
Thoughts, words, and deeds, the statute blames
with Reason
But surely dreams were ne’er indicted Treason.
Burns believed that he could trust those to
whom he had given copies of his poems but with some his trust was
misplaced. Mr. Tytler of Woodhouselee removed four lines from Tam
O’Shanter" because they criticized the church and legal profession. The
manuscript of "Love and Liberty" in Burns handwriting in the Edinburgh
University Library is substantially different from the renamed version,
"The Jolly Beggars", renamed and published in 1802. Though he never became
a martyr or suffered a penal colony, the blunt truth is that we have lost
sight of the names of most of the martyrs. However, we have not lost sight
of Burns. His views were known in Scotland during his lifetime, and after
his death the world began to learn how deeply he had been committed to
Human rights. |
