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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that flips through the pages of history to deliver

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Speaker 1: old news in a new way. I'm Gay Bluesier and

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Speaker 1: today we're looking back on the life of Robert Burns,

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Speaker 1: the bard of Scotland, who made it his life's work

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Speaker 1: to preserve and popularize the rich history and culture of

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Speaker 1: the land he held so dear. The day was January

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Speaker 1: twenty fifth, seventeen fifty nine. Celebrated poet Robert Burns was

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Speaker 1: born in Alloway, Scotland. He was the eldest of seven

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Speaker 1: children born to tenant farmers William Burns and Agnes Brown.

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Speaker 1: The family struggled to make a living on a farm

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Speaker 1: with poor soil, and for the first seven years of

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Speaker 1: Robert's life they lived side by side with their farm

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Speaker 1: animals in a four room cottage built by William. Despite

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Speaker 1: their hardships, William and Agnes insisted that their children be educated.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen sixty five, Robert and his brother Gilbert began

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Speaker 1: attending a school two miles away at Alloway Mill. Then

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Speaker 1: William and three other local families pulled their money and

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Speaker 1: hired a private tutor to teach their kids English grammar.

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Speaker 1: Robert Burns became an avid reader from an early age,

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Speaker 1: but he also heard plenty of traditional stories and songs

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Speaker 1: from a neighbor who sometimes helped out on the farm.

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Speaker 1: Her name was Betty Davidson, and according to Burns, he

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Speaker 1: owed his initial interest in poetry to her lyrical storytelling.

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Speaker 1: In a well known letter from his adulthood, Burns paid

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Speaker 1: tribute to this early influence, writing, in my infant and

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Speaker 1: boyish days, I owed much to an old maid of

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Speaker 1: my mother's, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. She

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Speaker 1: had I suppose the largest collection in the county of

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Speaker 1: tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies,

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Speaker 1: elf candles, dead lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantrips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons,

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Speaker 1: and other trumpery. This cultivated in me the latent seeds

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Speaker 1: of posey. Those seeds began to bore fruit when Burns

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Speaker 1: was a teenager. He penned his first composition in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy four, when he was just fifteen years old. It

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Speaker 1: was a romantic ode to a local farm girl named

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Speaker 1: Nellie Kilpatrick, or as she's called in the title, Handsome Nell.

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Speaker 1: For the next decade, Burns continued to casually make up

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Speaker 1: new poems and songs, usually while working on his family's farm. However,

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Speaker 1: after the death of his father in seventeen eighty five

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Speaker 1: four he began to take his writing much more seriously.

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Speaker 1: In a departure from his earlier work, he started writing

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Speaker 1: in the Scots language, using words he heard locally in

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Speaker 1: everyday speech. This new approach helped him find his true voice,

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Speaker 1: and over the next three years he penned dozens of verses,

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Speaker 1: the best of which he published in his first collection,

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Speaker 1: titled Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The book was

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Speaker 1: released in the summer of seventeen eighty six, when Burns

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Speaker 1: was twenty seven years old, and it was paid for

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Speaker 1: by subscriptions from people in the region who were already

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Speaker 1: familiar with his work. The collection was a labor of love,

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Speaker 1: but also a financial necessity, as the farm his father

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Speaker 1: had left him was doing quite poorly under he and

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Speaker 1: his brother's management. Things got so bad that Burns even

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Speaker 1: considered running off to Jamaica. To work as a bookkeeper

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Speaker 1: at a sugar plantation. Luckily, his poetry collection turned out

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Speaker 1: to be an instant hit, and the success convinced him

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Speaker 1: to stick around in Scotland. One person who surely appreciated

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Speaker 1: that decision was Jean Armor, Burns's lifelong lover and the

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Speaker 1: eventual mother to nine of his thirteen children. The couple

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Speaker 1: had gotten off to a rocky start due to Burns's

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Speaker 1: reputation as a womanizer. Jean's father didn't want his daughter

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Speaker 1: to have anything to do with the philandering poet, but

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Speaker 1: by the time Burns's first collection was released, she was

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Speaker 1: already pregnant with his twins. With the matter more or

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Speaker 1: less settled, the young couple tied the knot two years

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Speaker 1: later and promptly moved to their own farm, Ellisland, just

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Speaker 1: northwest of Dumfries. By that point, Burns was being hailed

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Speaker 1: throughout Scotland and England as a great peasant poet, or,

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Speaker 1: as he came to be known, the heaven taught plowman. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: neither poetry nor farming were paying the bills like they

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Speaker 1: used to, and Burns had to take a job as

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Speaker 1: an excise officer or tax collector, he didn't walk away

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Speaker 1: from writing, though. In fact, it was during this period

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Speaker 1: that he embarked on one of the most important literary

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Speaker 1: projects of his life, collecting folk songs for an anthology

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Speaker 1: called the Scott's Musical Museum. The project was the brainchild

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Speaker 1: of Scottish engraver and music seller James Johnson, who sought

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Speaker 1: to catalog the country's rich library of traditional folk songs.

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Speaker 1: Burns's contribution, which he made without seeking payment, was to

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Speaker 1: write lyrics to the mostly wordless tunes and to compose

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Speaker 1: new songs in the traditional Scottish style. It was a

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Speaker 1: chance to return to the old stories and songs that

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Speaker 1: it sparked his imagination as a child, and to make

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Speaker 1: his own additions to his country's cultural song book. The

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Speaker 1: endeavor would occupy the last decade of Burns's life, with

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Speaker 1: his personal output amounting to some two hundred pieces. Among

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Speaker 1: them were some of the poet's most celebrated works, including

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Speaker 1: tam O'Shanter, a Man's a Man for Awe that a

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Speaker 1: red red Rose, and Old lang Zi, the unofficial anthem

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Speaker 1: of New Year's Eve. Burns claimed that the latter song

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Speaker 1: was pre existing and that he merely quote took it

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Speaker 1: down from an old man, but literary experts suspect that

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Speaker 1: he put his own unique spin on the lyrics. In total,

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Speaker 1: Robert Burns is thought to have penned more than seven

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Speaker 1: hundred works in his lifetime, an impressive feat, especially in

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Speaker 1: light of how brief his life was. The poet had

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Speaker 1: suffered from a weak heart for decades, possibly as a

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Speaker 1: consequence of the backbreaking farm labor he performed in his youth.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen ninety six, the condition was exacerbated by a

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Speaker 1: bout of rheumatic fever, and he passed away not long

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Speaker 1: after at the age of thirty seven. In a bittersweet coincidence,

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Speaker 1: Gene Armour gave birth to their last son, Maxwell, on

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Speaker 1: the same day as Burns's funeral. Although he died young,

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Speaker 1: Robert Burns's body of work in shrew Ord, his legacy

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Speaker 1: would live on not only in Scotland but all over

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Speaker 1: the world because although his cultural identity as a Scotsman

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Speaker 1: is ever present in his poetry, so too are universal

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Speaker 1: themes such as injustice, oppression, hypocrisy, the hardships of rural life,

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Speaker 1: and of course, romantic passion. His work was cited as

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Speaker 1: a direct inspiration by many of the great poets who

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Speaker 1: followed him, including William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge and Percy bish Shelley.

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Speaker 1: Many of his poems and songs are still as popular

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Speaker 1: in Scotland today as they were when first written, and

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Speaker 1: one of the clearest examples of Burns's impact on Scottish

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Speaker 1: culture is the memorial celebration known as Burns Night. The

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Speaker 1: first of these events was held on the fifth anniversary

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Speaker 1: of Burns's death and was attended by nine of his

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Speaker 1: closest friends. Gathered at the poet's birthplace in Alloway. They

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Speaker 1: ate a supper of hackis, recited his poetry, and toasted

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Speaker 1: their departed friend with glasses of whiskey and a speech

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Speaker 1: that's now known as the Immortal Memory. The following year,

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Speaker 1: the celebration was moved to Burns's birthday, and as time

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Speaker 1: went on, more and more people began to participate. Today,

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Speaker 1: Burns Night is practically a national holiday in Scotland, though

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Speaker 1: the celebrations now take place in many other countries as well.

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Speaker 1: For the most part, the proceedings are about the same,

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Speaker 1: beginning with the saying of a short prayer called the

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Speaker 1: Selkirk Grace followed by a meal of haggis, accompanied by

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Speaker 1: bagpipe music and a recitation of Burns's poem honoring the

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Speaker 1: national dish address to a haggis. Once the meal is finished,

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Speaker 1: the Immortal Memory is given along with more readings of

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Speaker 1: Burns's work, and the whole event concludes with everyone singing

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Speaker 1: a round of old Lang sign. These raucous yet sentimental

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Speaker 1: celebrations are a fitting tribute to Scotland's best loved poet,

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Speaker 1: a lifelong pleasure seeker and man of the peace who

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Speaker 1: sought to preserve his country's heritage and wound up becoming

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Speaker 1: one of the most treasured parts of it. I'm Gabe

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Speaker 1: Bluesier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. You can learn even

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Speaker 1: more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: comments or suggestions you'd like to share, feel free to

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Speaker 1: send them my way by writing to this Day at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again tomorrow for another day in History Class