A Poetry Analysis on Robert Burns: To a Mouse, On Turning Her up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785

A Poetry Analysis on

Robert Burns: To a Mouse, On Turning Her up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785

By Shahira Kader

            Robert Burns is a self-educated, well celebrated Scottish poet who inspired the early Romantic movements though his theory of Primitivism. He used his natural flow of nature feelings in his works to highlight his ideology on Primitivism. His poems were mostly written in Scots dialect of English in support of his ideology to the theory. He felt it was rather natural to be original than to temporarily pretend to be someone he wasn’t although he has also written some work in English, the true passion of nature and primitivism are seen on his Scots dialect poetry.

           

            Robert Burns was known to be a peasant poet as his works spoke mostly on the beauty of preserving nature. He often concluded that nature remains unshaken even if humans tried to taint it. The best peace and love could only be gotten from nature and never from anything else.

           

            Robert is also a national poet of Scotland as his works are still highly regarded. His works are always appreciated as even today the New Year eve song, sung is a poem by Burns.

            Being primitivists, his works goes back to the origin of nature. Primitivism emulates or aspires to recreate “primitive” idea. Burns work refers back to non-Western works such as folklore and oral tradition passed on for centuries.

            Primitivism inspired theories such as Romanticism to Neo Classism and finally Realism. It truly was against the idea of Renaissance as because they do not wish to escape into a man-made glory instead it prefers to reveal the solid truth behind every creation. The ultimate truth of natural growth such as thoughts, physical attributes and behavioral changes shows the reality of nature. The theory of Primitivism could be clearly seen in Robert Burns’ poetry “To a Mouse”.

           

            The poetry is written in typical Scottish English that speaks of man versus nature. Burns speaks about the feelings of nature towards modernization as he believes that man has forgotten their origin which creates fear for other natural things around them. This is seen in the poem as he apologizes to the mouse by saying;

                        “I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion

                        Has broken Nature’s social union,” (pg 105:7-8)

He compares his situation to the mouse and says that the mouse is suffering only on present time while his suffering seems continuous towards the future. This was mention in the last stanza when the poet says;

                        “Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

                          The present only toucheth thee:

                          But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

                                                On prospects drear!

                         An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

                                                I guess an’ fear! (pg:106:line 43-48)

In this stanza, he also refers to the industrial revolution and how agrarian life has destroyed as peasants are left with nothing, “Thou saw the fields laid barean’waste,” ( line 25)

            Everything seems hopeless when destructions take place as the poet could foresee the annihilation that could take place with the introduction of Industrial Revolution. He assures the mouse to not be in fear for there will be a joy that awaits them. This could possibly refer to the peasants because he says,

                                    “An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

                                                            For promis’d joy” (line 40-41)      

He probably refers to the hope of restoration in future by looking at the mouse not at all worried as he is. His concern about the future deprives him to think of the present. While, the mouse seems to live his life at present having fear for the only present time issue rather than to worry about the future that he has no control of.  

            Robert Burns is ahead of his time to realize the natural life of human would soon be tainted with modernization. He had realized that the natural life of human is always going back to nature. A discovery from this poem seems to be that readers should be enlightened to live life naturally and accept things to take place at its own time. This is because nature has always better plans for you than for you to worry about the unpredictable future that you cannot change.

            In my point of view, Robert Burns is a genius of all time to believe in an ideology that seems natural and true. He admits that man can never be satisfied because Burns himself has succumbed to the “future” unlike the mouse that represents “nature”. I think that no matter how much a person moves ahead with modernization, nature always triumph because nature makes the sole decision to let modernization take place.

23 Nov 2019

8.43 P.M