|
Edited
by Frank R. Shaw, FSA Scot, Dawsonville, GA, USA
Email:
jurascot@earthlink.net
Recently a good
friend of mine recommended Ian Campbell as a contributor to our web site. As
our regular readers know, we try to add weekly articles on Burns, and if we
don’t, it means the cupboard is bare until the next contributor comes along.
I contacted Professor Campbell asking his favorable consideration to provide
a paper on Burns, and not only did I receive the one below, but his email
introducing the article contained this most delightful sentence:
”Congratulations
on assembling a cast-list as you have; people like Ron Jack are absolutely
first-rate on Burns, ditto Ross Roy, Patrick Scott, etc. As a former
President of the Edinburgh Burns Club it gives me great pleasure to offer
you the attached, an essay I wrote in 1975 for the late wonderful Donald
Low, whose works editing Burns’ songs you probably know well. If this piece
is of use to you, please let me know.”
Not only am I
familiar with Donald Low, but last January Susan and I were invited by his
charming wife Sheona to visit her in Bridge of Allan by Stirling for tea in
her lovely home there. As Dr. Campbell can attest, she is a vivacious
woman, who not only served us the best afternoon tea we have had this side
of the Savoy in London, but our conversation was extremely interesting as we
discussed her husband, his work, and his friends such as Ian Campbell. That
is the great thing about Burns people. They share their warmth and open
their hearts to fellow Burnsians.
I will always be
indebted to Professor Campbell for this article and will remember that he
“took me in”, a complete stranger, and contributed an article on Burns
whereas a less concerned person might have brushed me off with reasons that
their articles had been spoken for or that their schedules were too busy.
But as the pages on Robert Burns Lives! roll along year after year, I’m
impressed with the number of people who want to be a part of what has become
a site for people around the world to pull up and read for pleasure, or to
do research for a Burns Supper talk, or simply to stay in touch with what’s
going on in the world of Burns.
I’m also grateful
for the use of biographical information on Professor Campbell provided by
Edinburgh University. I must conclude by saying I’m touched that Ian, like
so many others, would help me continue what I believe is the truth - “Robert
Burns Lives!” (FRS: 10.3.12)
Edinburgh
University
Ian Campbell
Professor Emeritus
of Scottish and Victorian Literature
c/o English Literature, David Hume
Tower
Outline Biography
Ian Campbell
Professor Emeritus of Scottish and
Victorian Literature
ian.campbell@ed.ac.uk
0131-650 3618/19/20
c/o English Literature, David Hume
Tower
Outline Biography
Ian Campbell joined the department in 1964 as a
postgraduate, and the lecturing staff in 1967. He has been Reader since
1981, and Professor since 1992; he also had visiting appointments in Canada,
USA (most frequently at UCLA), in Europe and in Japan. He retired till
September 2009 but is an honorary fellow as well as emeritus professor.
Research Interests
These are in two main areas. He has been involved since
arrival with the development of Scottish literature teaching, mostly since
the time of Burns. The subject is now taught at every level in the
department, and coincident with this is the provision of teaching texts and
critical material in what was until recently a little-resourced field. The
other area is the life and work of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), above all
through the Duke-Edinburgh edition of the Collected Letters of Thomas and
Jane Welsh Carlyle, a massive international collaborative project which has
now reached 40 volumes out of a projected 43. The editing work by the team
involves a great deal of biographical and textual research and new documents
are regularly coming to light, His other research interests include
nineteenth century Scottish and English fiction, twentieth century Scottish
fiction and poetry, and most of all the Bible and literature, on which he is
working at present. He has also taught in the fields of popular culture
and in science fiction.
Research activity
In July 2012 there will be an international conference in
Edinburgh to mark the publication of volume 40 of the Carlyle Letters; he is
one of the joint organisers. He will also be giving a public lecture on 15
November 2012 to mark the arrival of volume 40 from the USA entitled "Thomas
Carlyle and the University of Edinburgh".
Publications
Publications list for Ian Campbell
This article was published on Mar 23, 2011
Burns's Poems and their
Audience
By
Ian Campbell
Robert Burns announced
himself to the world as a rustic genius. In the preface to the 'Kilmarnock
Burns', he begged his readers, 'particularly the Learned and the Polite,
who may honor him with a perusal, that they will make every
allowance for Education and Circumstances of Life'. The learned and the
polite took him at his word, and the tradition of the noble peasant Burns
has grown from that day to this. Recent criticism has balked at this
oversimplification; critics like David Daiches and Tom Crawford have
pointed out Burns's learning, his reading, his very subtle
understanding of society, of human nature, of the relationship between
words and music, between folk-tales and the acceptable literary forms of
his time. Burns emerges from his letters a man fully conscious of his
very considerable gifts and learning, yet fully aware of the
limitations his environment and station in society placed on the full
development of these powers. The critical exploration of a poem like 'Tam o'
Shanter' is a fine process of disentangling the genuinely naive from the
subtle and well-engineered manipulation of the reader's response, the
rhetorical (in the technical sense) from the simpliste or merely inspired.
Burns's visit to Edinburgh
was the great testing-point of the image of the humble but
heaven-taught peasant which he wished to present to the world. His poems were
published, they had achieved a modest uccess, Henry Mackenzie had
been captivated by them and in the Lounger he had given them a
lengthy notice which put their commercial success beyond doubt. At this
point the author emerged from western obscurity, and made a public
appearance under eastern eyes. It was November 1786. Edinburgh was
prepared to be charmed by Burns, and it was. His social career
was hectic, as he wryly noted to Gavin Hamilton. 'By all probability
I shall soon be the tenth Worthy, and the eighth Wise Man, of the
world.’¹ His acquaintance ranged through all parts of Edinburgh,
including not only those eminent in literature (such as Dugald Stewart and
Dr Blacklock) but also those socially eminent. His behaviour and
deportment were universally admired.²
His manners were then,
as they continued ever afterwards, simple, manly, and independent;
strongly expressive of conscious genius and worth; but without
anything that indicated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. He
took his share in conversation, but not more than belonged to
him; and listened with apparent attention and deference, on
subjects where his want of education deprived him of the means of
information.
This behaviour delighted his
Edinburgh hosts, for to many it seemed that he not only wrote
as one conscious of his social station, and not trying to break out
of it, but also that he had sufficient 'natural breeding' in real life to
keep within his social station while being lionized. Yet it is here that
a closer look at this familiar tale may reveal a useful critical point.
Dugald Stewart, even while describing Burns's well- judged social behaviour,
did quibble that 'If there had been a little more of gentleness and
accommodation in his temper, he would, I think, have been still more
interesting’.³ Burns, it is very dear from the descriptions of him which
were made at the time of this Edinburgh visit, lost not a bit of his
reserve or self-sufficiency under the glare of publicity, or the pressure of
city life. He went there self-possessed, and to a large extent self-made,
and he remained thus through it all. Walter Scott only sixteen,
noticed ‘a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his
lineaments’.[1]
Dugald Stewart opined that although 'the attentions he received
during his stay in town from all ranks and descriptions of persons, were
such as would have turned any head but his own’, Burns survived
unscathed. 'He retained the same simplicity of manners and appearance
which had struck me so forcibly when I first saw him in the country.[2]
There is an ironical
appearance to these descriptions now. The literati were pleased to see
how little difference their city had made to the rustic genius. Burns's
place, after all, was in their eyes to remain in the country, and there to
produce more poems of the same general kind, although tempered in
their excess by the literary advice of Edinburgh critics. Burns's
respectful bearing, his power of remaining untouched by the experience
of city life, were hopeful signs. Yet the modern reader, with the
advantage of hindsight, sees these things in a different light. The modern
reader is helped too by Burn's correspondence, which shows how little
overawed he was by the company of literati and social
eminences he met in Edinburgh. Commonplace romantic stories tell how he
moved from mingling with the great and famous to the company of some
disreputable lover, but the real point of his social mobility is not
to emphasize Burns the Great Lover, but to show how intensely
self-possessed he was. Edinburgh affected him with excitement, with
understandable pride at being lionized for his talents, but it did not shine before
him as any promised land. The low literary quality of 'Edina, Scotia's
Darling Seat' is some indication of this. Others might be quoted from
his correspondence. Even while still there, on his first visit, he
wrote home clear-sightedly.[3]
Novelty may attract the
attention of mankind a while; to it I owe my present eclat: but I
see the time not distant far when the popular tide which has
borne me to a height of which I am perhaps unworthy shall
recede with a silent celerity and leave me a barren waste of sand,
to descend at my leisure to my former station. I do not say
this in the affectation of modesty; I see the consequence is
unavoidable and am prepared for it. I had been at a good deal of pains
to form a just, impartial estimate of my intellectual Powers
before I came here; I have not added, since I came to Edr, any thing to
the account; and I trust, I shall take every atom of it back to
my shades, the coverts of my unnoticed, early years.
So little was he bowled over
by Edinburgh life, which he was later to escribe as 'houses building,
bucks strutting, ladies flaring, blackguards sculking, whores leering, &c.
in the old way'.[4]
To Mrs Dunlop he was very scathing, too, in
writing of the ‘pomp of Princes street’,[5]
and the ridiculous pride of many he
saw there. Although he met many people in Edinburgh whose friendship
he admired and appreciated: 'I am afraid my numerous Edinr
friendships are of so tender a construction that they will not bear
carriage with me.’[6]
No, Burns kept his head in Edinburgh. 'In reality,' he
wrote, 'I have no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of
Prosperity.’[7] When
he got back to Mauchline, he felt an initial
depression very understandable after the excitement of Edinburgh,
aggravated, as he told William Nicol, by 'the stateliness of the
Patricians in Edin, and the servility of my plebeian brethren, who
perhaps formerly eyed me askance, since I returned home’.[8]
Burns was genuinely hurt, as the letters show, to find that he might be no
longer part of the community from which he had produced the poems which
made him famous.
Burns's early story is a
familiar one; he was well known all round his part of Ayrshire for his
powers of speech, his conviviality (which led to the Tarbolton
Bachelors), a great popularity in Masonic circles which opened doors to him
(even among the Canongate masons, in Edinburgh), his strenuous
social and amorous pursuits, his activities as a local poet and punster
whose reputation spread out from local beginnings to national
recognition. Burns was very firmly rooted in his locality, and criticism of
his work must take continuous account of this fact, or poems like
'Holy Willie's Prayer' and 'Tam o' Shanter' lose enormously. To remove to
Edinburgh was to gain experience, to receive just critical acclaim
for work done in Ayrshire. He was not to settle in Edinburgh, but to
enjoy himself and return to the scene of his labours. To find himself eyed
askance by his friends and equals thus stung as much as the
patronage of some of the literati. What is very interesting indeed is to see
that he was (in the letter just quoted) quite aware of patronage, which
stung him. Yet the literati testify to the fact that he did not show his
chagrin, but bore himself with perfect good manners during his stay in
Edinburgh. Once again, we come to the point of Burns's self-control
and self-possession. It was fitting that, when he felt out of sorts on
his return to Dumfriesshire, he should try to console himself with
Paradise Lost, particularly admiring 'the dauntless magnanimity; the
intrepid unyielding independence; the desperate daring, and noble
defiance of hardship, in that great personage, Satan'.[9] 'I
have very little dependance on mankind', he added later in the same paragraph,[10]
and completed the testimony to his own independence of mind.
Along with independence went
acute sociability. Burns, in his famous autobiographical
letter to Dr John Moore, wrote of his[11]
strong appetite for
sociability, [and] ... a constitutional hypocondriac taint which made me fly
solitude, add to all these incentives to social
life, my reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild, logical
talent, and a strength of thought something like the rudiments of
good sense, made me generally a welcome guest; so 'tis no great
wonder that always 'where two or three were met together, there
was I in the midst of them'.
In short, Burns was the
centre of his social community in Ayrshire, a sociable man who loved fun
and conviviality. He looked at life, often, from inside such a community,
and he had the power of adapting his world-view to the values of
that community, without limiting it to the values thus expressed. An
outstanding example is the opening section of 'Tam o’ Shanter', in which
the world is seen from the cosy shelter of a convivial group by the
inn fireside. The first four lines
When chapman billies
leave the street,
And drouthy neebors,
neebors meet,
As market-days are
wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the
gate
are purely descriptive of the
conditions leading up to the opening-the opening itself is in the
fifth line,
While we
sit bousing at the nappy,
a line actually descriptive
of the conditions in the poem at the time, as they affect Tam. The other
things belong to the world outside the social group, and by the time Tam
actually ventures into the outside world, in the story of this poem,
the day has gone, it is dark, and none of the initial description is of any
relevance. What counts is what is going on in Tam's own social circle,
and it is this which is introduced in the fifth line. Very
significantly, it is introduced with the word 'we'- 'While we sit bousing at the
nappy'. At once, the audience is drawn in, for it is necessary for the
reader to share Tam's world-view in order fully to appreciate his
contempt for the world-values outside the howff, and particularly for him to
share in the drunken contempt Tam feels for the devil and the
witches. Insulated from the full horror (a horror still real to Burns's
contemporaries) of witchcraft and wizardry, Tam sees it all through an
alcoholic haze, which lasts undisturbed till his drunken
Weel
done, Cutty-sark!
breaks the spell, and
simultaneously the witches become aware of his presence as an onlooker, and
his drunken stupor gives way to fear, and flight. A dramatic
monologue-rendering of 'Tam o’ Shanter' would reinforce this interpretation
very strongly. Tam is unaware of the danger of the world-
The storm
without might rair and rustle,
Tam didna
mind the storm a whistle,
-not till he sees the witches
actually heading for him does he turn in flight, and Burns makes the
pace of the remainder of the poem (up to the mock sententia) headlong
flight, expressive of the real pace of life which replaces the drunken
maundering, the half-stultified looking around and noting of lurid
detail without actual comprehension. The pace of the poem, in short,
is not tied to the real-life situation described, or to real-life events, but
to the subject's powers of comprehension: as the subject is drunk, or
half-drunk, this means that the poem has to convince the reader to see
things at this pace, if the is to share in the recreation of the story. We know that
Burns composed the poem at speed, re-living with delight
the action as he embodied it in verse; the reader is invited to
share in this delighted re-creation, and in order to achieve this is invited to
see the action through the drunken eyes of Tam, and to share his
befuddled incomprehension.
This point is an important
one, I believe, in the proper criticism of Burns. We know Burns enjoyed
drink-his powers in this field belong to the folklore of Scottish
literature-and much of his poetry emerges from the human contact he
achieved in the social situation which accompanied this drinking.
This does not so much apply to Edinburgh, where Burns was on his best
behaviour, at least part of the time, but to the Ayrshire community to
which he was proud to belong, and from which he drew his inspiration
and poetical strength. The community embraced all orders, holy and
unholy, sober and drunken, rich and poor, but we have a good idea
from poems such as 'The Twa Dogs', 'Tam O' Shanter' and 'The
Holy Fair' what part of the community pleased Burns most. He felt
he belonged to it, and his hurt when he returned from Edinburgh and
found himself alienated is proof of this.
In a small country like
Scotland, the power of the community is not one to be underestimated. In
the tenth and eleventh chapters of The House with the Green
Shutters, George Douglas Brown brilliantly evokes the closed nature of
these communities. In this specific example, an outsider, formerly a
member of the community, returns to his childhood scenes, and is met
by the hostility of the outstanding member of the community - John Gourlay. The resulting enmity is one of the mainsprings of the hostility
which eventually brings about the downfall of the House with the Green
Shutters. Yet throughout the book the community is brilliantly used
by the author, who was himself estranged from his childhood community
by prosperity (although to surprisingly small an extent), and who
grew up never quite accepted by it, as a result of illegitimate birth
and a proud independence which made him unpopular. Brown was
hypersensitive to this feeling of being apart from his community,[12]
and he used it throughout his book to show how characters could be
rebuffed by a village, in its corporate form of the 'bodies'. A stranger, or
someone unpopular, need not necessarily be met with rudeness, but
with bland politeness, by perfect civility, yet by a complete lack of
communication. Within themselves the gossips of the community share their
news impartially, they communicate with little reserve and (in this
case) startling spite,[13]
yet when confronted by a stranger the shutters go
up. The result is not rudeness; it is perfect civility and politeness, yet
complete self-possession. The stranger is not rebuffed, he is simply
excluded from the community, treated with complete self-possession and
reserve. In chapter five Jock Gilmour is dismissed from the service of
John Gourlay in the House with the Green Shutters, and as he
staggers down the hill, his chest on his shoulder, the first persons
he meets are the 'bodies', who treat him exactly in this way. He is
not one of them, but he is interesting (he has gossip they would like to
share) so he is humoured and his information is extracted deftly.
'Aye man, Dyohn!'
lisped Deacon Allardyce, with bright and eagerly enquiring eyes.
'And what did he thay to that, na? That wath a dig for him! I'the
warrant he wath angry.' 'Angry? He foamed at the
mouth! But I up and says to him, "I have had enough o’
you," says I, "you and your Hoose wi' the Green Shutters," says I,
"you're no fit to have a decent servant," says I. "Pay me my wages
and I'll be redd o’ ye," says I. And wi' that ,I flang my kist on
my shouther and slapped the door ahint me. 'And did he pay ye your
wages!' Tam Wylie probed him slily, with a sideward glimmer
in his eye. 'Ah, well; no; not
exactly: said Gilmour, drawing in. 'But I'll get them right enough for
a' that. He'll no get the better o’ me.' Having grounded
unpleasantly on the question of the wages he thought it best to be off
ere the bloom was dashed from his importance, so he shouldered his
chest and went. The bodies watched him down the street.
'He's a lying brose,
that,' said the baker. 'We a' ken what Gourlay is. He would have
flung Gilmour out by the scruff o’ the neck, if he had daured
set his tongue against him!' 'Faith, that's so,' said
Tam Wylie and Johnny Coe together.
As soon as the stranger has
gone, the community lets down its barriers, and free
interchange is again possible. The process operates elsewhere in the book, even
when members of the community are alone. It could be seen at
work, too, in the works of Lewis Grassic Gibbon where, in Sunset Song,
the inhabitants of Kinraddie act with composure and self-possession
in the presence of strangers because they are conscious of belonging to
a community, whose values they uphold (while freely criticizing
individual members). Incomers meet with cool polite reserve, and they
withdraw baffled. John Guthrie confronting the rich motorist, the
villagers confronting the minister (especially Long Rob), Chris dealing with
strangers after her father's death, all display the calm and the
self-possession of people who know the way of life of their community
intimately, and find that by conforming to its values they can face the
unexpected with calm.
What relevance has this to
the study of Burns? The point has already been made that Burns belonged
to such a community as Barbie and Kinraddie, and that he valued
his membership of it highly. It has been suggested that Tam o’ Shanter
sees the world from the cosy intimacy of such a community, and that
the best position a reader may adopt is to place himself in the
position of such a person, and try to follow Tam's thought-processes at
their own speed. I believe that the premises outlined so far, applied to
'Death and Doctor Hornbook', illustrate how such an application of
biography and social history may assist the criticism of literature.
'Death and Doctor Hornbook'
tells, in thirty-one six-line stanzas, of an encounter between a tipsy
farmer, on his way home, and a supernatural creature, who is shown as the
poem progresses to be Death. After a wary initial exchange
of pleasantries and threats, for the narrator (whom we can call, for
convenience, Burns) is more than a little befuddled, the two sit down
to chat, and after much recorded conversation a sudden warning of dawn (in
the form of a clock striking) makes the ghostly figure of Death
retreat precipitately to the nether regions whence he came. The poem is
light-hearted, sufficiently so for the supernatural being never to
assume terrifying proportions. Like Tam's witches, he is too distanced
by Burns's befuddlement to be seen as the Grim Reaper, but rather as a
chance passer-by who has a crack with a stranger on the road.
The resemblances between
'Tam o' Shanter' and 'Death and Doctor Hornbook' are well developed.
Both poems are a form of the dramatic monologue; in both cases the
speaker is a little drunk, in both he meets with supernatural beings who
emerge as figures of fun and folk-tale, but with their gruesome
aspects not quite submerged beneath the glazed drunken understanding
of the teller. Tam's catalogue of gruesome sights in Kirk-Alloway
is matched by the bloody exploits of Death in this poem. To
Burns's readers, as much as to the modern ones (perhaps more), Death would
be a familiar visitant, with life-expectancies low and wars a frequent
occurrence. Death was no joke, however light-heartedly Burns could
treat it.
The poem opens on a note of
ambiguity; a passing dig at ministers is part of the ironic
protestation that this poem is serious, matching perfectly the mock
pulpit-seriousness of the ending of 'Tam o’ Shanter', Bums protests, too much, that
this is a serious poem; at once we suspect its bona fides. This
suspicion is heightened by the description of befuddlement. The
self-excusing tone-
I was na fou, but
just had plenty:
I stachered
whiles, but yet took tent aye
To
free the ditches;
And hillocks,
stanes, an' bushes, kend aye
Frae
ghaists an' witches
convinces no one; Burns
clearly was tipsy. Yet he was not altogether drunk; rather he was
initially garrulous, and in a right mood to talk to any passing stranger. Death
cannot be taken seriously in these circumstances. Burns is not fit to take him
seriously, and as we are being told what happened through Burns's
eyes, we can no more be terrified by the apparition than Burns
was. Yet Burns's artistry is at its finest here, for he borrows the ballad
technique in his initial description of Death-
I there wi'
Something does foregather
leaving the details
absolutely to the reader's imagination, till he offers a few clues in the following
stanza. The effect is very much like (quite possibly borrowed from)
About the middle
O' the night,
They heard the
bridles ring-
What bridles, what horses,
we never find out. The details are entirely supplied from the darker
depths of the reader's imagination. Admittedly, Burns does add a few touches
about the thinness of Death, and the length of his sickle, but
the description is vague. Artistically, this is excellent; and it is in
keeping with Burns's dull state that he does not look more closely, nor remark
on it more than that it had
The queerest
shape that e'er I saw.
He greets it with openness,
without effusiveness.
'Guid-een,' quo' I;
'Friend! hae ye been mawin,
When ither folk are busy
sawin?'
The reference to the sickle
is boorish, the reader laughs, the potential tension is removed. The whole
situation is reduced to two country people talking of the
weather, of the crops. It could be one of a thousand Scottish short
stories, instead of a supernatural event. (It is noticeable that Stevenson
employs just the same low-level technique in the similar confrontation
in Markheim.)
Death does not fit into this
tone.
It spak right howe: 'My name
is Death,
But be na fleyed.' Quoth I,
'Guid faith,
Ye're maybe come to stap my
breath;
But tent me, billie:
I red ye weel, take care O' skaith,
See, there's a gully!"
Two points concern Burns's
retort to Death. One is the drunken stupidity of it (of course
death is incorporeal); the other is the devaluing of death in the whole poem,
for the announcement of Death's identity is greeted not by awestruck
silence, or anguished cries, but by calm insouciance, followed by a
self-possessed threat. It may be drunken, but there is no mistaking the
self-possession of Burns's attitude. Death does not worry him. He is on home
ground (emphasized in stanzas 3, 4 and 5) and he fears nothing.
Death and Burns sit down
together for a crack. From stanza 10 onwards, the poem is occupied
by an increasingly querulous monologue by Death, punctuated by
occasional half-ironic observations by Burns. Several comic
techniques are employed: the catalogue of experiences and of medical
remedies, rising to the ridiculous (and faIling to the pathetic by
over-emphasis and over-detailed repetition); the ironic juxtaposition on Burns's part of local gossip and old-wives'-tales with Death, the Great
Reaper, and with local gossip winning. Death cannot get the better
of local medicine, however primitive or ridiculous. The Jonsonesque
terms of alchemy and the ridiculously local are put side by side:
Forbye some new,
uncommon weapons,
Urinus spiritus of
capons;
Or mite-horn
shavings, fillings, scrapings,
Distill'd per se;
Sal-alkali 0'
midge-tail-clippings,
And monie mae,
The two languages, like the
two sciences, clash ludicrously, and as there is so much emphasis,
repetition and catalogue, the effect is finally pathetic. And it comes from
Death, into whose mouth the ridiculous catalogue is put. Burns's
speeches are, by comparison, calm, cool and collected; he is the
drunkard, supposedly half-tipsy, but it is Death who babbles.
Why this unexpected division
of speeches? Surely it is because Burns's calm self-possession
drives Death to more and more self-justification, more and more detail in an
effort to impress. Twenty-two stanzas pass, and the
death-figure is still talking, too much, too fluently, too exaggeratedly. Burns's
reply shows how completely unimpressed he is. All that concerns him
is the possible effect on a neighbour's field, which may be ploughed up to
provide all the doctor's remedies. The effect on his neighbour
affects Burns much more strongly than Death's vision of a world where
people live to old age because Death's power has been cancelled out.
Burns's philosophical calm, of course, drives the death-figure to still wilder
claims and more extravagant speeches. He points out how Hornbook kills
as well as cures - usurping his own prerogative:
Whare I kill'd
ane, a fait strae death
By loss 0' blood
or want O' breath,
This night I'm
free to take my aith,
That Hornbook's skill
Has clad a score
i' their last claith
By drap an' pill.
Ironic examples follow.
Again there is excess everywhere, too many examples, too ridiculous, all
drawn from local gossip, rich in Ayrshire allusion. Death is almost
apoplectic.
His last thrust is a
pathetic one:
But hark! I'll
tell you of a plot,
Tho' dinna ye be
speakin' o't:
I'll nail the
self-conceited sot,
As dead's
a herrin;
Niest time we
meet, I'll wad a groat,
He gets
his fairin!
But alas, he has no chance to
elaborate. At this point the clock strikes, and, again borrowing from
ballad tradition, the death-figure is made to shift uneasily, to see
that his hour is almost past and he must return to his proper place. It might
be, if it were more serious, 'The Wife of Usher's Well'. But it is not
serious. It is the last thrust at the death figure, who can only go off uttering
empty threats, leaving Hornbook in victorious possession of
the field.
It is a doubly ridiculous
plot. In the first place, Hornbook's local fame as dilettante apothecary
is too insubstantial to bear the fabric of a thirty-one-stanza poem, too
local and unimportant to take seriously. This poem is a jeu d'esprit,
using a snatch of local gossip and parodying larger forms, larger ideas,
by ironic contrast with the littleness of the subject. Gray's 'Ode on the
Death of a Favourite Cat' employs the same technique, as does
Fielding's Tom Thumb. In the second place, it is a ridiculous poem
because it inverts the expected order. Death makes an appearance on earth,
an event which in a ballad would have been recognized for what it
was, an omen of evil and a matter for real fear, because actual human
death was sure to follow. Here the situation is the same, but the reaction
is all wrong. Burns takes it too calmly; he fails to respond to Death's
speeches, and so Death literally talks himself out of the audience's
respect.
The point to note is that
the effect, in both ways, is achieved by taking the reader into the
position of the writer as member of a small and closed community. As in
'Tam o’ Shanter', Burns is inviting (indeed, forcing) the reader
down to the level of a tipsy crony, one of Souter Johnnie's friends, and
making him see the events through the blurred and sleepy eyes of a
man just this side of drunkenness. This is the intention of the poem,
and the artistic means used to achieve it, if less obvious than in the
opening of 'Tam o’ Shanter', are no less clever.
If the individual perception
is that of a half-drunk individual, the perceptions surrounding the
story - the world-values, they might be called - are those of the
other members of the community, probably those who share his love of
sociable drinking and story-telling. The manner of the poem is that of
a story retold to friends, among friends; the elaborate
self-justification and explanation of the third stanza is that of a crony explaining to his
cronies that they knew how much drink he had had, that he was not
drunk, and so that the following was a true story and the details were to
be trusted. Yet the attitude is faithfully maintained. He was
half-drunk, and unable to provide close detail of Death's description. What he
can remember is the details of local gossip, ribald, bawdy,
ridiculous to a close group who would be familiar with the
personalities involved, and would relish the long drawn-out joke on Doctor
Hornbook. It is a tissue of jokes to be told to friends, in a local
situation; it is told in the manner of a convivial recitation, lubricated by
drink; its teller, and its audience, are in the same group, share the same
values and knowledge.
Death does not. This is the
ultimate comic device of the poem. Death tries in vain to break down
this self-sufficient, self-complacent barrier which Burns, as part of his
friendly group, erects in his way. Burns cannot be impressed. He is
prevented by tipsiness, by rustic reserve in the presence of strangers. It
is something the reader would quite easily recognize; he would see what
Burns was trying to portray; he would take the poem, indeed he
still can take the poem, in this sense. Burns is approaching a familiar
situation, familiar because of its ballad associations, namely the confrontation of a
mortal with Death. "Thrawn Janet' derives its central
situation from exactly the same confrontation. Burns could have dramatized
it, he could have added horrendous details, but instead he chose
to limit the poem to the world-values of his clique, and make it
comic, which he succeeds in doing, marvellously simply, by the limitations he
deliberately imposes on the world values of the poem, and the
techniques of narration. It is a friendly clique poem, and by employing
these techniques succeeds in being a great comic one. It is a
technique, and a success, which is shown also in the 'Address to the Deil'.
Which brings us back to
Burns in Edinburgh. A man slightly aloof. slightly reserved, definitely
a man self-possessed and not swept off his feet by the adulation and the
sudden contact with both literary highlife and social intercourse of a
kind quite outwith his common experience. He retained through it his
earlier possession of what he had brought to Edinburgh, a sense
of belonging to a community. It is perhaps significant that
'Death and Doctor Hornbook' was written before the visit to
Edinburgh, and 'Tam o' Shanter' afterwards. Both display, consistently, the
same artistic poise which Edinburgh neither gave nor destroyed. He looked
forward to rejoining this community; he felt hurt when a barrier
rose between him and it on his return from Edinburgh. Both before and
after his first visit, he was noted for his conviviality, his love of
sociable drinking. Edinburgh extended his experience, but he viewed it
from outside. His aloofness, his sense of belonging to what he had
known earlier, a social group in which he felt at ease, arguably
extends the reader's understanding of 'Death and Doctor Hornbook', by showing
how it is based on a set of values not quite central to the reader
of wider experience, yet certainly not a set of values denied to him.
Perhaps this is one reason,
apart from causing local offence, why Burns omitted 'Death and
Doctor Hornbook' from the Kilmarnock Volume - because this was his
bid for fame in a wider market, and this was such a localized poem.
Yet I do not think we should take the localization as a serious bar
to a modern cosmopolitan appreciation of the poem. After the details
become forgotten history, the technique remains, and the point, once
made, can be applied to the analysis of many of Burns's finest comic
poems, such as 'Tam o’ Shanter' and 'Holy Willie's Prayer'. This
is a point to be taken seriously, for with it one arrives at a
justification for taking localized literature, particularly localized Scottish
literature, seriously. The language problem is not important. Here the broad,
rustic language is merely an intensification of an atmosphere which is
created by details, by the attitudes of the two speakers. In this poem,
as in Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner, one of the most important
things a critic must take into account is the conflict between localized
values, localized references and the wider references in the poem. The
reader, armed with the wider references, such as the implicit
references to the border ballads, and the traditions of revenants, possibly also
half-unconscious mental references to the Angel of Death in the Book of
Exodus, sees this comic poem as a well-finished satire disguised as local.
The wider reader sees both sides, Death's and Burns's, and he
sees how Burns is holding off Death, making a fool of him, by his
complacent local rustic reserve. The reader can also see how Burns
is employing local reference and satire to deflate the situation, in the
classic traditions of mock-heroic poetry. As in Hogg's novel, both a
knowledge of the local situation and the ability to see and judge it
as local widen the reader's appreciation of the finished work appreciably. In
'Death and Doctor Hornbook' Burns has produced a fine poem
which, suitably adorned with apparatus criticus, can be understood
by anyone as local satire. Implicitly, he has given it a fine mock-heroic
shape and form which ensures for it a place in the tradition of the
literature of demonology. By a nice balance of provincial and national,
Burns has shown that he can be national, and international, in a poem
which seems at first sight confined to satire of the most local variety. And
this, in Burns's successful poems, is a strong argument in favour of
granting him the international stature as poet which seems increasingly
to be regarded as his by right.
NOTES
1 The Letters of Robert
Burns, ed. J. De Lancey Ferguson (Oxford, 1931), I p·55·
2 Quoted from D. Daiches,
Robert Burns (London, 1952), pp. 235-6.
3 Quoted from Daiches, 0p.
cit., p. 236.
4 Scott's description to
Lockhart, quoted from Daiches, op. cit., p. 237.
5 Quoted from Daiches, op.
dt., p. 236.
6 Letters, I, p. 71.
7 Ibid., p. 182;
8 Ibid., p. 311.
9 Letters, I, p. 87.
10 Ibid., p. 71.
11 Ibid., p. 96.
12 Ibid. ,p. 97.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 110.
15 See, for example, the
episode in Brown's youth described in J. Veitch, George Douglas Brown
(London, 1952), p. 66.
16 For an example, see The
House with the Green Shutters (1901), ch. 15. E 53 |
