Category: Robert Burns
Understanding Robert Burns
Verse, Explanation and Glossary
By George Scott Wilkie
The poems of Robert Burns are known throughout the world, but are rarely understood. For too long lovers of his poetry and songs have struggled with the meaning of many of the bard's words. Following the success of George Wilkie's Select Works of Roberts Burns, this expanded volume of Burns' poetry, with 138 poems, captures the same ethos as the original.
Opposite every stanza of each poem the meaning of what Burns has written is printed along with a helpful glossary to enable to reader to gain an immediate understanding. No delving into notes at the end of the book is necessary. This is a major development in access to the works of Robert Burns and is the only book on the works of Robert Burns that allows the reader to gain an immediate understanding of what the poems mean. For instance, take the first stanza of Ode to A Mouse:
Wee sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie Burns is doing his utmost to
Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! assure this terrified little creature that
Thou need na start awa' sae hasty it is quite safe, that he has no
Wi' bickerin' brattle intention of causing it any harm.
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, brattle: a short race; laith: loath
Wi' murdering pattle. pattle: a small spade for cleaning a
plough
Key Features
REPRINTING APRIL 2009.