ToBec Tribute to Poets and Poetry
Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair man?
Burns night, 25th January, is the night Robert Burns is celebrated by Scots and non-Scots around the world. While Burns is said to have never left his native Scotland
In 2000 a newspaper described Burns as the man of the Millennium. He not only wrote poetry, but also restored and recorded poetry and songs that had been passed down from generation to generation. At ToBec we have adopted Burns as an ambassador of all poets and poetry. Behind me on a bookshelf are six volumes of the ToBec Newsletter. Browsing, I came across Burns’ “On Scaring Some Water-Fowl in Loch Turit.” The last verse I think reminds us of the moderating, even auditing role literature should have over science.
Or, if man’s superior might
Dare invade your native right,
On the lofty ether borne,
Man with all his pow’rs you scorn;
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings,
Other lakes and other springs;
And the foe you cannot brave,
Scorn at least to be his slave.
Burns urges the waterfowl to fly away to other safe places, but what do they do when there is nowhere to go? Today, “man’s superior might” has reached the nuclear age, and it is not only the birds that must find other places to live!
Robert Burns
25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796
Chronology
25 January 1759 Born
1759 – 1766 Alloway, Ayrshire
1766 – 1777 Mount Oliphant
1771 – 1796 Completed over 550 poems, ballads and songs
1777 – 1784 Lochlea, between Tarbolton and Mauchline
February 1784 William Burnes died
1784 Met Jean Armour of Mauchline
1784 – 1796 Mossgiel Gilbert and Robert started the farm together, but Gilbert continued the farm alone
1786 Secretly married Jean Armour who gave birth to twins
1786 Published ‘Kilmarnock Poems'
1786 – 1788 Gained celebrity in Edinburgh
4th May 1788 Formalized marriage to Jean Armour
June 1788 – 1791 Ellisland, Dumfrieshire farming and working in excise
Nov 1791 1796 Dumfries . Officer in the Dumfries Port
21 July 1796 Passed away
At ToBec Burns Night we welcome readings from all poets, including original poetry, so;
Bring a poem, and a dram or dish
We’ll raise our glasses and make a wish,
For family, friends and neighbours, too
For all the world, and for you.
Songs and ditties in humour and fun,
In riddles and rhyme a truth may run.
Thoughts shared, ideas sown,
Dreams to prosper in the year to come.
Below is a simple Chronology of Poetry in English Literature compiled from “Love Through the Ages”. This chronology gives some indication of how poets and their poetry have responded to the issues of the times. The website above is a good place to explore the role and influence of poetry.
PERIODS OF LITERATURE
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD (1200 BC - 455 AD)
The Classical (Homeric) Age
Extracts from The Odyssey
The Classical Roman Age
Extracts from Ovid's Metamorphoses
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD (455 AD-1485 AD)
The Medieval Age
THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION (1485-1660 AD)
The Renaissance and Elizabethan Age
Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe
THE ENLIGHTENMENT (NEOCLASSICAL) PERIOD (1660-1790)
The Neoclassical Age
The Restoration (c. 1660-1700)
The Augustan Age (c. 1700-1750)
The Age of Johnson (c. 1750-1790)
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (c. 1790-1830)
THE VICTORIAN PERIOD and the 19th Century (c. 1819-1901)
MODERN PERIOD (c. 1914-1945)
The Age of Modernism
The Lost Generation (also called the writers of The Jazz Age, 1914-1929)
THE POSTMODERN PERIOD (c. 1945 onward) (1950-2001)
Multiculturalism
The Beat poets
