The Essential Burns

by Robert Creeley and Robert Burns

A collection of poems by Robert Burns includes "Address to the Deil," "Death and Doctor Hornbook," "Tam o' Shanter," "The Jolly Beggars," "Auld Lang Syne," and others. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0880011947
• ISBN13: 9780880011945
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 115 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

College Poetry Professor on Robert Burns

Perhaps because Shakespeare, Swinburne and Homer are three of my all-time favorite poets, Robert Burns blows me away. His words (filled with an intriguing old Scottish dialect) are like lyrics, verses of songs--tumultuous one moment and subtle and serene the next, but always apparent that swarthy Scottish accent. In this little, GIFT-SIZED book, THE ESSENTIAL BURNS, the most appealing poems for me are: "A DREAM," "A RED, RED ROSE," and, believe it or not, a short poem called "THE LOUSE" (strangely, probably his best known piece.) I was disappointed by the absence of his poems on the sea, what I consider to be his most compelling, inspirational work. But there is plenty here to dig in to.Because of his thick, olde-Scottish dialect, many readers and students of literature finds him difficult to read and, sometimes, impossible to understand. But stay with it, I tell them, and when they do they usually end the term feeling much more amiable toward Burns and much more confident of their own poetry-reading abilities.