Robert Burns was born on Jan. 25, 1759, in Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland. He was the eldest of seven children born to tenant farmers William Burns and Agnes Broun.
When he was 7, his father moved them to a farm near Mount Oliphant, where they began a life of hardship and poverty. That resulted in Burns having little schooling save what his father and tutors could teach him.
In 1774, Burns was the principal laborer on the farm. Nelly Kilpatrick assisted him occasionally and inspired him to try writing poetry. That encouragement paved the way for his first work- O, Once I loved a Bonnie Lass.
In 1775, he left the farm to finish his education, where he met Peggy Thompson and wrote two songs about her: "Now Westlin' Winds" and "I Dream'd I Lay."
In 1781, Burns became initiated into the Masonic Lodge at St. David, Tarbolton, where the family lived after moving from Mt. Oliphant. He also worked as a flax dresser, but the shop unfortunately burnt to the ground during a worker's celebration. However, he met and befriended Captain Richard Brown, who encouraged Burns to become a poet.
He continued to write poems and songs and began a commonplace book in 1783.
From there, he rapidly grew as a poet and published his first collection, titled "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect," in 1786 to immediate success.
His professional life took off with a bound, and his personal life saw many romantic entanglements, including Elizabeth Paton, Jean Armour, and Mary Campbell. Robert Burns had 10 children, 7 of which survived infancy.
He died on July 21, 1796, from a previously unknown heart condition. He is buried in the Burns Mausoleum at the St. Michael's Churchyard in Dumfries, where he made his home.
Despite being 37 at the time of his death, Burns has a reputation as the national poet of Scotland, the founder of romanticism, and a rebel against orthodox religion and morality. To learn more about this author and his works, click the link above or check out his Wikipedia page!
Poems in this episode are Winter, a Dirge, The Bookworm, The Poet's Progress, Raptures of Folly, and To a Mouse. Find them all at Project Gutenberg!
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