“A Man’s a Man for a’ That”: The Search for Equality in the Poetry of Robert Burns
This essay explores the theme of equality in the poetic work of Robert Burns. The poem “Is there for Honest Poverty” makes for Burns’s most significant statement in support of the inherent dignity of man. It is, moreover, a cry for a social revolution where the barriers of rank and status are brought down giving way to a new order based on universal brotherhood and mutual acceptance and recognition. Additionally, the theme of equality is present in other poems and excerpts of poems written by Robert Burns. In order to bring Burns’s egalitarian views to light, there is an attempt to establish parallels between “Is there for Honest Poverty”, and poems such as “The Vision,” “The Twa Dogs,” “Address of Beelzebub,” and “The Tree of Liberty,” to name a few. Nevertheless, the intertextuality of poems is not, by itself, the exclusive factor that clarifies Burns’s ideology. For that reason, there is additionally an attempt to establish connections between Burns’s personal experience as a tenant farmer and exciseman and his desires for a more equal and fraternal society. In effect, Burns’s experience of poverty and precarity, as well as his struggle for survival in a world divided by issues of class and rank, led him to develop a deep sensitivity regarding the hardships surrounding the toils of the common man. Therefore, as the Bard of Scotland, Burns used his position to voice the joys and sorrows of his contemporaries, particularly those who, like himself, originated from the lower end of the social scale. What is more, Burns’s struggle for a more inclusive society was not limited to his immediate context. As a true humanist, Burns was also interested in the defense and enhancement of the rights of the disenfranchised groups of the time, that is, women and the enslaved.
Enska, Burns, Robert, 1759-1796, Breskar bókmenntir, Ljóð, Skáld, Ljóðagerð, Bókmenntagreining, Hugmyndafræði, Jafnréttismál, Virðing
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