/lit/ - Literature

>>18493954
Yes, he's bigger than Pushkin.

>>18493954
>national poet Robert Burns
Fuck sake. Is that just something people say or is it actually a law?

>>18493987
I'm not a Scot, but he's generally considered Scotland's greatest poet. I mean, who else do they have?

>>18493996
Walter Scott maybe, but he's not fashionable now.
Though most British poets are more widely read abroad, due to what absolute philistines 99% of brits are. Can you imagine discussing poetry in the workplace? It's generally considered a really wanky thing to be into

>>18494013
>even in the first world people are utter plebs
wew lad

>>18493996
>greatest poet
He isn't that good.
>who else do they have?

>>18494013
Yeah but we still sing auld lang syne every Hogmanay, that's probably why. But I never knew he had such an impact on Russians I find it fascinating desu. He was on post stamps and everything.

>>18493954
Burns left progeny in Russia.

>>18494058
I think its because he's from a humble background, and a bit of a socialist, A Man's A Man etc, so the Soviets held him up as an example of Proletariat greatness

>>18493996
>greatest poet
He isn't that good.
>who else do they have?

Lady Grizel Baillie
Blind Henry
Robert Henryson
William Dunbar
Ossian
Alexander Montgomery
Mary MacLeod

>>18493954
Burns's poems were read by Pushkin himself (Pushkin learned English from books, someone wrote, he strongly distorted the words in the French way.)

But the real fame came when he was translated by S. Y. Marshak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuil_Marshak
Although it can be a very loose translation, they have gained a lot of popularity. Many ballads were set to music, and the music made it into popular films.
So, apparently, many poems are popular, although people may not know something that is precisely the poems of Burns.
For example, I remembered the ballad "Heather Honey". (Heather Ale: A Galloway Legend)
https://folklorescotland.com/the-legend-of-heather-ale/
, but it turns out to be Stevenson, another scotsman, also translated by Marshak.

>>18493987
>>18493996
Having lived in Scotland for a number of years, Burns is everywhere. Every major city has a Burns monument, January 25th is treated like an official holiday too, no matter what day of the week it's on, just like St Andrew's day is observed even by those who are totally estranged from the Church and religion.

He is madly promoted by the SNP because of his at times proto-socialist views. They try to hype Burns as a figure of national resistance, even though he was thoroughly Church of Scotland and disliked the ardently Catholic highlands. He never was anti-English or anti-Union, and all his political views derived from an intense and somewhat amoral Calvinism.

>>18494714
>ardently Catholic highlands.
Scotland was 99% Protestant in Burns' life with the only Catholic population existing in the Southern Hebrides.

>>18494714
>>18494714
>Every major city has a Burns monument
the whole four of them?!

From Wikipedia:
Burns became the "people's poet" of Russia. In Imperial Russia Burns was translated into Russian and became a source of inspiration for the ordinary, oppressed Russian people. In Soviet Russia, he was elevated as the archetypal poet of the people. As a great admirer of the egalitarian ethos behind the American and French Revolutions who expressed his own egalitarianism in poems such as his "Birthday Ode for George Washington" or his "Is There for Honest Poverty" (commonly known as "A Man's a Man for a' that"), Burns was well placed for endorsement by the Communist regime as a "progressive" artist. A new translation of Burns begun in 1924 by Samuil Marshak proved enormously popular, selling over 600,000 copies.[62] The USSR honoured Burns with a commemorative stamp in 1956. He remains popular in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.[63]

>>18493954
They're crazy about him in Scotland, they even developed a software in the 90s for people to know his work and life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_Robert_Burns

>>18494726
There are 25+ memorials in Scotland alone. Many more in other English-speaking countries. He's a man with his own wiki about his memorials all around the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Robert_Burns_memorials

>>18494780
not really. i dont know anyone who would be able to recite any of his poems by heart

>>18494828
Not even Auld Lang Syne? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lMlGDZ5xBo

>>18494828
Not even Auld Lang Syne? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_6Vs8pADrQ

>>18494850
thats not his. even he said he just wrote down a song from an old man.

>>18494855
He made it popular, though. You are basically reading or singing his rendition of an old folk song.

>>18493996

>>18494013
Walter scott is better known for his prose

>>18494879
Does making it popular make it his original work? Would you call me the worlds greatest poet if I took dozens of other peoples poems and made them 10x more well known? Just think for a minute. One second even.

>>18495346
Do any poets have original thoughts or do they merely act as vessels for the divine intellect of God?

>>18495346
He didn't take a song from a poet. He made his own rendition of a folk song.

>>18494828
Address to a Haggis

>>18493954
He was popularized in USSR by Samuil Marshak who made translations of his poems (which I find to be very good). I am not from Russia, but from a post-soviet country, and he (Burns) is also known here, mainly through Marshak's translations.

>>18493996

>>18494780
They aren't exactly spoiled for choice up there when it comes to intellectuals.

>>18496947
https://youtu.be/6jJkdRaa04g

None of the Scottish poets mentioned in this thread come anywhere close to Burn. I've read that he was big in Russia but I don't know much about it, he was also translated several times by major poets in early 20th century China

here's two Soviet-era versions of Burns's songs by Georgy Sviridov:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkRpgDSB1Ow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVUGH6t2srA

and some other takes by non-Russian composers

Beethoven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voK9QvLJz68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOcpu6Y4yE

Haydn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxhq5Y7wGSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtPi-NKd7kI

Leopold Koželuch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INzME1iKkGE

>>18496954
We were too busy inventing the world

>>18496947
Why did you post the worst one?

>>18496954
Yes
Scotland isn't famous for being a country that produced many intelligent people of course not
>>18497389
Literally all of them are better than him