Customer Reviews

Essential Burns (Essential Poets)

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Perhaps because Shakespeare, Swinburne and Homer are three of my all-time favorite poets, Robert Burns blows me away. His words (filled with an intriguing old Scottish dialect) are like lyrics, verses of songs--tumultuous one moment and subtle and serene the next, but always apparent that swarthy Scottish accent.

In this little, GIFT-SIZED book, THE ESSENTIAL BURNS, the most appealing poems for me are: "A DREAM," "A RED, RED ROSE," and, believe it or not, a short poem called "THE LOUSE" (strangely, probably his best known piece.) I was disappointed by the absence of his poems on the sea, what I consider to be his most compelling, inspirational work. But there is plenty here to dig in to.

Because of his thick, olde-Scottish dialect, many readers and students of literature finds him difficult to read and, sometimes, impossible to understand. But stay with it, I tell them, and when they do they usually end the term feeling much more amiable toward Burns and much more confident of their own poetry-reading abilities.

Perhaps because Shakespeare, Swinburne and Homer are three of my all-time favorite poets, Robert Burns blows me away. His words (filled with an intriguing old Scottish dialect) are like lyrics, verses of songs--tumultuous one moment and subtle and serene the next, but always apparent that swarthy Scottish accent.

In this little, GIFT-SIZED book, THE ESSENTIAL BURNS, the most appealing poems for me are: "A DREAM," "A RED, RED ROSE," and, believe it or not, a short poem called "THE LOUSE" (strangely, probably his best known piece.) I was disappointed by the absence of his poems on the sea, what I consider to be his most compelling, inspirational work. But there is plenty here to dig in to.

Because of his thick, olde-Scottish dialect, many readers and students of literature finds him difficult to read and, sometimes, impossible to understand. But stay with it, I tell them, and when they do they usually end the term feeling much more amiable toward Burns and much more confident of their own poetry-reading abilities.