Burns night

[Raphael]

Raphael,


Burns Night Suppers can be dull, dry, and stogy affairs but they don't have to be.

Burns' recitations can be dull, dry, stogy readings but they don't have to be.

Didn't last year you post a rap version of the "Address to the Haggis"?


Shakespearean theater has the same challenge, to bring understanding and life to a language that the audience might not understand.

May be I need to attend a proper Burns Supper. I don't mind dry, as long as it is a learning and meaningful evening.

When it comes down to Shakespearean Theatre, I love it. I love Hamlet. I use to obsess with the play and would go to see all the productions in town.

[OC Richard]

As a working piper, a Burns night is a night of work and getting paid. Cynical as it sounds, I'd wager that that's the feeling of many pipers.

It's usually a night of sitting around waiting to play, having to squirm in my seat listening to people struggle through botched attempts at reading his poetry by people who can't pronounce and don't understand the dialect. The worst are the people who try to do a fake Scottish accent.

But how different one of the two dinners I played at this year was!

A guy got up and gave a wonderful, clear, consise, and entertaining account of Burns' life.

Then a old Scottish man whose normal way of talking is very close to Burns' dialect read one of Burns' poems. This was great to get the true "sound" of the poetry but nobody could understand much of it.

I wondered what the best approach was for reading Burns' Lowland dialect stuff 1) having it read by someone who actually speaks that dialect to get the sound but lose the meaning or 2) translate it into Standard English and lose the sound but get the meaning or 3) stick to stuff that Burns wrote in Standard English.

Then... another reader got up, and did possibly the best reading of Burns I'd ever heard. This was a guy who had been born and raised in Scotland but had come to the USA as a young man and had lived here the rest of his life. Though he conversed in an American accent he was able to read in a genuine Scottish accent, and do it in a way that the meaning of the poem was quite clear to an American audience.

Then the next night was another Burns' night of horrid readings...ughhh...rather than sit around listening to it I got out my smallpipes and wandered around playing soft background music.

In any case, after hearing a number of Burns' poems I got the sense that here was a man who experienced life somehow more fully, more completely than most people, who observed and pondered and felt and was able to capture it in verse. I once read "art is the recording of human experience, and the more profound the experience and the more clear the recording of it, the better the art". This puts its finger directly on what makes Burns great.

A dissenting voice is from a Gaelic scholar I know who despises Burns, saying that he was responsible for the destruction of a significant corpus of genuine Scots and Gaelic music and song.

[gordontaos]

My wife and I have hosted one formal Burns night, attended one, and I have been the moderator at an additional two. I have done the "Address to a Haggis" in Shakesperean style, cried during my "Toast to the Lassies", and had others get up to recite some of Burns' works during my version of the "Immortal Memory".
I celebrate Burns night to honor the man, his talent, his love of freedom, his ability to snub the upper classes without them realizing it, and finally, as a tribute to Scots heritage.
When Burns wrote in a thick dialect he did so on purpose, and a very unique form of language has survived today because of his efforts. He could also write in plain english, and did so based upon the audience that he was attempting to reach.
A perfect example of Burns showing his love of liberty, command of proper english, and smacking the face of those in power is his "Ode for General Washington's Birthday". To write such thoughts so soon after the American Revolution, and during the distressing (for royalty), time of the French Revolution, might have earned him some jail time.
Likewise, "Address to Haggis" made great fun of the wealthy patrons who were supporting him, and their dining habits. It is an homage to the common man, and is written in a heavy dialect.
"Scots Wha Hae" is another of those fiercly nationalistic and warlike poems that certainly was not welcomed by authority. Remember, when Burns wrote this poem the Highland Dress Proscription Act of 1746 had been repealed for less than ten years.
I live in a town of 6,000 souls in what is perhaps the oldest continually inhabited area of North America. The Taos Pueblo Indians are still living in their 700+ year old apartment houses. The Spanish settled this valley before the Pilgrims arrived, and the first people of Scots ancestry did not arrive until 1821. Despite that, we had over 60 people at our event on the 23rd, from every culture and socio economic group in the valley. To my knowledge it was the only Burns Night in New Mexico.
Everyone who came, came for their own personal reason. It may have been to wear their kilt, hear the Pipers, enjoy some good food, listen to some poetry, hobnob with a few people of social import, or they had heard how it was great fun last year. One reason is as good as any other. It does not matter WHY people come, just as long as they come. Also, its REALLY important to have fun at a Burns Night, after all, if you understand the man, you begin to appreciate his love of life.
I believe that it was John Stuart Blackie, Scottish scholar and patriot, who said, "When Scotland forgets Burns, then history will forget Scotland".