Robert Burns - How To Know Him by William Allan Neilson
page 175 of 334 (52%)
page 175 of 334 (52%)
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of patronage, became more and more associated with the aristocracy who
bestowed the livings. The result was that the moderate clergy degenerated under prosperity and lost their spiritual zeal; while their opponents, chastened by adversity, became the champions of the autonomy of the church, and, in the "ten years' conflict" that broke out little more than a generation after the death of Burns, showed themselves of the stuff of the martyrs. It would be impossible to trace the extent of the influence of the poet on the purging of orthodoxy or on the limitation of ecclesiastical despotism, since his work was in accord with the drift of the times; but it is fair to infer that, especially among the common people who were less likely to be reached by more philosophical discussion, his share was far from inconsiderable. The poetical value of the satires is another matter. It may be questioned whether satire is ever essentially poetry, as poetry has been understood for the last hundred years. The dominant mood of satire is too antagonistic to imagination. But if we restrict our attention to the characteristic qualities of verse satire--vividness in depicting its object, blazing indignation or bitter scorn in its attitude, and wit in its expression, we shall be forced to grant that Burns achieved here notable success. Of the rarer power of satire to rise above the local, temporal, and personal to the exhibiting of universal elements in human life, there are comparatively few instances in Burns. The _Address to the Unco Guid_ is perhaps the finest example; and here, as usually in his work, the approach to the general leads him to drop the scourge for the sermon. In his tendency to preach, Burns was as much the inheritor of a national tradition as in any of his other characteristics. A strain of |
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