I walked away from our last class period, thinking about language and how it functions. We are constantly either praising an author for their language authenticity, or lack thereof, or castigating them for using a language separate from the formal. In education studies, so much of the conversation can be centered around the teaching process of either formal English or the English that students use in their daily lives. I would argue that Burns represents an important piece of evidence to prove that teaching, writings, and spoken word in one’s colloquial language has immense value.
Burns’s use of Scots English, as I will call it, brings poetry to his community. When, in the past, poetry had been reserved for a “highly” educated class. His poetry is class based because of his ability to not exclude, but include individuals in writings that represent their daily lives and traditions. The poetry is not far fetched to them because it is them, as much as it is Burns. By creating poetry in this language, he immortalizes and prioritizes its use. We have to study the cadence and vocabulary of the poetry in order to understand it, keeping the language alive. I had read about this dynamic within Irish poetry and literature, but had never transferred it to the Scottish. Seeing it within the Scottish, creates a bind between the two nations as a educational revolution that is fighting for autonomy in their culture.
Romanticism Blog 