Biography in brief
Born in Alloway, Scotland, on January 25, 1759, Robert Burns was the first of William and Agnes Burnes’ seven children. His father, a tenant farmer, educated his children at home. Burns also attended one year of mathematics schooling and, between 1765 and 1768, he attended an “adventure” school established by his father and John Murdock. His father died in bankruptcy in 1784, and Burns and his brother Gilbert took over farm. This hard labor later contributed to the heart trouble that Burns’ suffered as an adult. At the age of fifteen, he fell in love and shortly thereafter he wrote his first poem. As a young man, Burns pursued both love and poetry with uncommon zeal. In 1785, he fathered the first of his fourteen children. Between 1784 and 1785, Burns also wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which was printed in 1786 and paid for by subscriptions. This collection was an immediate success and Burns was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great “peasant-poet.”
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In 1788, he and his wife, Jean Amour, settled in Ellisland, where Burns was given a commission as an excise officer. He also began to assist James Johnson in collecting folk songs for an anthology entitled The Scots Musical Museum. Robert Burns died from heart disease at the age of thirty-seven. On the day of his death, Jean Amour gave birth to his last son, Maxwell. Burns died on July 21, 1796, at the age of 37. Even today, he is referred to as the National Bard of Scotland. |
Scottish Poet's Life Timeline (Click the picture)
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