USC campus library celebrates poet Burns' 250th anniversary
"Old Scottish airs are so nobly sentimental that when one would compose to them" - Robert Burns argued that a reliance on the conversational rhythms of everyday speech was the "readiest way to catch the inspiration and raise the bard into that glorious enthusiasm so strongly characteristic of old Scottish poetry."
This was his modus operandi. When faced with the task of poetic composition, Burns would almost always add words from common parlance to an old, familiar tune, one that had already captured the collective imagination of his compatriots. This is surely one of the principal reasons that this 18th-century poet became so quickly identified with the hopes and dreams of the Scots.
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Burns. To commemorate this literary landmark, the Rare Books and Special Collections Department of the University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Library in Columbia has mounted a special exhibition of highlights from the G. Ross Roy Collection of Robert Burns and Scottish Poetry.
Reputed to be the largest repository of its kind outside of Scotland, the Roy Collection boasts a wide array of print materials and artifacts associated with the poetry of Scotland and, in particular, the man most critics consider to be that country's greatest poet.
Born in 1759, Burns was the son of a simple tenant farmer. As evidence of his humble beginnings, the Ross Collection gives pride of place to a wooden porridge bowl and spoon made from animal horn, both items said to have been used by Burns in his early life.
Also included in the collection are copies of books that the self-educated versifier most likely read during his formative years, including a popular history of Scottish hero William Wallace, widely known as Braveheart, and a book of poems by Robert Fergusson, whom Burns credited as a role model, his "elder brother in the Muse," because of the latter's early use of the vernacular in verse.
Fergusson died at age 24 in an asylum in Edinburgh; accounts vary as to the cause of his tragic descent into madness. Surely, however, one of the most touching tributes of one writer to another is Burns' campaign to place a stone on Fergusson's unmarked grave in the cemetery of the Canongate Kirk. Outside that church today, David Annand's full-length sculpture of Fergusson clutching a book to his breast and strolling down the Royal Mile between the castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse provides tourists a popular photographic opportunity. I remember trying to match my stride to that of the bronze figure while a friend took snapshots during a trip to Scotland in 2007.
Burns' kind gesture regarding his immediate poetic predecessor was made possible by his own recent literary success. In 1786, he published a collection of his poems by subscription. This volume, known as the Kilmarnock edition in recognition of its place of publication, is a rarity. About 600 copies were printed at the time; only 70 are now known to survive. The Ross Collection has one of those copies.
In 1787, because of early critical notice, a second edition of his "Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect" was published in Edinburgh. An original copy of this landmark volume, still in its original binding, is also part of the Ross Roy Collection.
Burns' reputation spread quickly after his acceptance in Edinburgh literary circles; in fact, only one year after the second edition was published in Scotland, pirated volumes of his poetry were printed in America - our country at that time had no copyright laws protecting foreign authors. Perhaps because of the emigration of so many Scottish citizens to the New World, there was a considerable market for Burns' work; the Roy Collection includes editions of his poems printed in Philadelphia and New York in 1788.
Despite his burgeoning international reputation, Burns still had to make a living, and he tried farming for a time and eventually became an excise officer or tax collector. He died in 1796 at age 37 from complications probably related to a longstanding rheumatic heart condition.
"Robert Burns at 250" is on display in the mezzanine of the Thomas Cooper Library on USC campus until the end of this month. For more information, call (803) 777-3142 or access the University Libraries website at www.sc.edu/library/news.
The G. Ross Roy Collection dates from 1959 when Dr. Roy, emeritus professor of English, inherited items from his grandfather's estate. Over time, Roy greatly expanded the collection, which was transferred to university ownership in 1989 through a gift-purchase agreement.
Dr. Mack is a Carolina Trustee Professor at USC Aiken.