Knowra Robert Burns Robert Burns Robert Burns was an eighteenth-century Scottish poet and lyricist whose Scots-language writing and songs became central to Scotland’s literary and cultural heritage.
Scots language : A West Germanic language traditionally spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster, distinct from Scottish English and Scottish Gaelic. Burns wrote poems and songs in Scots as well as in English.
Alloway : A village in South Ayrshire, Scotland, now part of the town of Ayr. Burns was born in Alloway, and its landscape appears in his writing.
James Hogg : A Scottish poet and novelist known as the Ettrick Shepherd, who wrote in Scots and English. Hogg inherited and transformed the Scots literary tradition Burns helped popularize.
Burns supper : An annual gathering held around 25 January to celebrate Robert Burns with food, speeches, and his poetry. The custom turns Burns’s birthday into a recurring public celebration of his work.
Auld Lang Syne : A song based on a Scots poem by Robert Burns, traditionally sung at New Year and other farewells. Burns’s best-known song draws on an older Scots expression and tradition.
William Burnes : A Scottish tenant farmer and schoolteacher, and the father of Robert Burns. His father’s instruction and discipline influenced Burns’s education and early life.
Walter Scott : A Scottish novelist and poet whose historical writing made him a major figure in nineteenth-century literature. Scott’s later literary stature helped sustain interest in Scotland’s national literary heritage.
Burns Night : The annual observance of Robert Burns’s birthday, usually held on 25 January. Burns’s reputation is marked by a calendar tradition practiced in Scotland and elsewhere.
To a Mouse : A Scots poem by Robert Burns, composed in 1785 after he disturbed a mouse’s nest while ploughing. Its address to a field mouse shows Burns’s sympathy for vulnerable lives.
Kilmarnock edition : The 1786 first edition of Robert Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, printed in Kilmarnock. Its success brought Burns recognition beyond Ayrshire and helped launch his literary career.
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